ACER-CART Report

Respectfully submitted by Joan Zaretsky

In June 2022, Dave Najduch and I attended the Annual General Meeting for ACER-CART held in Ottawa. We were welcomed by the staff and all provinces were represented with the exception of Quebec. Since then, Yukon has chosen to withdraw from this national organization.

The first afternoon, we participated in two presentations. Sue Lantz started the afternoon with her discussion of Aging in Place using her five-strategy framework which we have been highlighting in KIT over the course of the year. She piqued the interest of everyone there and certainly presented something of interest to every individual as she outlined how to map out a course for your best retirement life journey.

Next, there were three speakers from the Canadian Teachers Federation discussing political advocacy strategies. We were most impressed when they were using similar language to what RTAM had started using as a result of our enlisting of Prairie Sky to help us gain support for Bill 208. They discussed the importance of developing your “Asks” and offered some strategies to support the achievement of your desired actions.

In the afternoon, Dave and I did a presentation entitled “Reshaping the RTAM Experience”. In it, we outlined some of the major changes and advancements which RTAM had made in 2021-22. We highlighted, with funding to hire some competent experts in their field, we were making great strides to create an organization that achieved its ASKs and goals. Attached is the PowerPoint which Dave and I presented. We obviously captured the attention of the ACER-CART Board and the affiliate members. I received a personal letter from Martin Higgs the President elected for 2022-2023, offering thanks to Dave and I for our presentation. He wrote:

“You very clearly outlined the process that RTAM went through to transform its image from being perceived as a club to that of a dynamic professional organization with definite goals and plans to achieve them. Everyone in the room was impressed, not only with what RTAM has done, but also with the clarity of the presentation and I’m sure that people are taking a closer look at their own organizations as a result.”

We obviously made an impact on the group as there were lots of questions and discussion during the evening meal and at the hospitality room later that evening. This was the prelude to the motion we took forward for increasing the annual contributions of retired teachers beyond 3 cents in New Business the next day.

Our motion which Dave and I presented the next day was based on some discussions we had held with Gerry Tiede, the President, regarding some strategies to receive more annual stable funding to support the daily running and future of the ACER-CART organization. With each retired teacher in Canada contributing 3 cents a month to this organization, their total revenue from fees collected for their fiscal year ending on July 31, 2021 was $48,338. That is a pittance of what is required to run a national organization with a whole slate of Officers and to accomplish any strategic plans! While ACER-CART does receive some donations from various provincial organizations, they cannot rely on this money and this makes planning difficult. Horrified at the low funds available and with some support from the ACERCART staff who had past experiences with many of the AGM attendees, we developed our motion to take forward at the AGM meeting the following day. The PowerPoint we used to present our motion is also attached. Our motion was carried with only three members voting against it.

I truly admired the ACER-CART staff and directors with their list of Priorities for 2022-23. While all of their Priorities echo our concerns and our newly developed Requests for Action, universal Pharmacare, a health care system that prioritizes care in senior’ homes for as long as possible and regulations governing Retirement and Long-Term Care Homes with emphasis on improving patient respect, working conditions, training and staff wages, three priorities which struck me in terms of our RTAM discussions were:

ACER-CART will …

1. Advocate for the protection of all retiree pensions, with emphasis on the preservation and enhancement of defined benefit pension plans.

2. Advocate for an appointed independent senior spokesperson for each province and territory.

3. Advocate for a Charter of Rights for Older Adults or Seniors.

There were some very rich conversations with very dedicated individuals trying to establish the best plans of action to accomplish some of these priorities. It was enlightening for Dave and I to see that there had been two ACER-CART Presidents who were RTAM members –Murray Smith in 1999-2001 and Vaughn Wadelius in 2009-2011.

Throughout the course of the year, 2022-23, RTAM made a request to the ACER-CART Director to put an all-call out to other retired teacher organizations across the country for any Board leadership Handbooks which had been developed or strategies to support familiarizing a new Board with protocols and legislation (bylaws, policies, articles of incorporation, etc.). I received emails from a number of provincial organizations and Sean Seywright, our Executive Director, talked with some of the Executive Directors in some provinces as well as to how they train their new Board members. The information collected is being put to use in the development of our Board Members Handbook, which we can share with our colleagues. a. Advocate with the federal government on a range of issues facing “retired persons and seniors”. Become a recognized “national voice” representing 160,000 plus members. b. Bring together and foster relationships between the provincial organizations. c. Act as a clearing house of provincial and national information. d. Develop partnerships with commercial firms and NGO’s who could deliver services or advocacy to and on behalf of “seniors”. a. Grow the organization by accessing national and provincial grants. b. Use the additional funding to hire staff, refine the web site, and broaden the provincial networking mechanisms. c. Until the staffing resources of ACERCART have expanded, the organization needs to use the funds generated through grants to focus on one major issue and that should be the provision of a national pharma-care plan. d. Once the ACER-CART has used the grant money to grow the organization, it then needs to expand the advocacy and services provided over the longer term with an increase in fees to help further develop staffing, research and programing. a. Develop a network which would have provincial organizations meet quarterly through Zoom to share current successes and areas of concerns. b. The network could see Presidents and senior staff (e.g. Executive Directors) attend these meetings. c. The purpose of the networking is to develop relationships across the country and access skills which can be used to help address local issues of concern as they may arise. d. Provide a series of up to 4 articles a year to be shared with the provincial organizations that could be used on their web pages and in their publications. These could address the national concern/s being discussed by ACER-CART. a. Provide feedback to the national organization. b. Attend regional / network meetings as they take place. c. Send a member / delegation to the ACER-CART Annual General Meeting. d. Assist with the grant writing process when and where possible. e. Promote ACER-CART and their issues in their provincial publications and through their social media feeds. f. During Federal Elections, promote ACER-CART positions with candidates and parties in their province. a. To be a “national organization”, ACERCART needs to grow. You can start with grant money and/or part time staffing to take the first steps to expansion. In the future increase fees when success has been demonstrated. b. Regularly remind politicians at the provincial and federal level that our 160,000 members vote. c. With a growth in staff time, use some of this to communicate with provincial directors more frequently.

On March 22, RTAM received an letter requesting our participation in a survey to collect data to support the Executive and Board in responding to our motion’s recommendation to establish what their priorities would be in the upcoming years. These priorities would drive their budget process and their strategies to increase the budget to accomplish their identified stakeholder requests. On April 7, 2023, we held a working group meeting for one hour and established our responses to their five questions. Thanks to Dave Najduch, our resident notetaker, for putting our ideas in a form to submit to ACER-CART.

The following is based on a one-hour discussion of the RTAM working group which took place Friday April 7, 2023 over Zoom. The purpose of the group was to focus on responding to the ACER-CART survey. The following response is based on the ACER-CART questions and the RTAM responses.

1. What should ACER-CART’s purpose be?

2. What role(s) do you think it should and can fulfill?

3. How can ACER-CART best support Members?

4. How can you, as a Member, support ACER-CART?

5. Other relevant comments or suggestions.

After submitting our input, we will be excited to hear from our two new ACERCART AGM delegates in June 2023, Linda Blair and Gabe Mercer, to report on the outcome of the motion we took forth last year.