We did it! "Fox News North" has dropped their bid for forced access to our cable fees!

83,000 of us signed the petition, 25,000 sent letters to the CRTC and 4,000 donated over $115,000 - and last week SunTV, seeing they could not win, dropped their request to the government to force cable companies to carry them. A huge congrats to everyone on this amazing victory for Canada!

It wasn't easy -- the Sun media empire threw everything they had at us - smear pieces, legal threats, even insider knowledge of sabotage of our campaigns -- but our united voices proved more powerful than even a Harper-allied corporate giant.

Let's take a moment to celebrate this, and share thoughts for what we do next. Click below to join a nation-wide live-chat:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/crtc_report_back/?vl

Just 3 weeks ago, our campaign caused the resignation in disgrace of SunTV chief and former Harper spin doctor Kory Teneycke (after we pressed for an RCMP investigation into the sabotage of our petition by people linked to Teneycke). While significant, Teneycke was just replaced by another scandal-ridden spin doctor for another conservative Prime Minister.

But the decision to abandon the forced access to our fees is a huge deal. "Fox News North" (SunTV) has admitted that, if given a free choice, Canadians won't watch it enough to make it profitable - that's why they sought a special licence from the CRTC that would force cable companies to carry them, and why the press warned that the CRTC was under pressure from the Harper government to grant this licence. So, the success of our people-powered campaign could mean the end of this attempt to bring a poisonous brand of crony-media to Canada. Hooray!

Harper's radical-right clique has launched a full scale assault on our democracy - forcing out top civil servants for refusing to be politicized, controlling press access to government like never before, even shutting down our Parliament when it suited them. A 24 hour propaganda news channel that backed their every move, no matter how outrageous, could have been a headshot to our country's democratic character. This victory is Canadian democracy's resilient response, and it's beautiful. Thank you!!

With gratitude and excitement for all we can achieve together in the future,
Ricken, Emma, Laryn and the whole Avaaz team


Sun TV gears down licence application, The Globe and Mail:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/sun-tv-gears-down-licence-application/article1743859/

Fox News North - Not: Savour the victory, The Vancouver Sun:
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/communityofinterest/archive/2010/10/06/fox-news-north-not-savour-the-victory.aspx

Labour’s CPP campaign gaining support!

Canada's finance ministers will meet in Alberta in December to talk about the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans. The labour movement forced this issue onto the national agenda and we are gaining support among experts and the public at large.

Professor Jack Mintz from the University of Calgary wrote a paper a year ago for the federal and provincial governments. He said that our pension system did not need reform but now he is coming around. He says, "If there was some enhancement of the CPP, I think I could buy that."

Professor Jonathan Kesselman, a pensions expert at Simon Fraser University in B.C., says that improving the CPP is a better option than any other proposal being put forward.

The public is also on our side. In a recent Environics poll conducted for CUPE and PSAC, 78% of respondents support increasing CPP benefits. A CLC poll provides similar results, and we also found that 52% of respondents would vote for a party that proposes to increase CPP benefits.

The financial services sector, which charges fat fees on RRSPs and other investments, opposes our plan and so does the Alberta government. But our CLC poll shows that 73% of Albertans surveyed actually support increasing CPP benefits.

I will meet this week with Premier Danny Williams of Newfoundland and Labrador, and will meet with other political leaders in weeks to come. It's important that all of us work to keep the pressure on our federal, provincial and territorial representatives. Canadians are counting on us to do so.

Please visit the CLC website to see how our CPP plan will affect your province or territory.

President's Commentary: The top ten reasons to expand the Canada Pension Plan
CPP is the envy of the world: it’s secure, funded on a sound basis and well managed by professional staff independent of government.

By James Clancy
National President
National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE)
Ottawa (27 Oct. 2010) – Canada is facing a retirement income crisis as more and more Canadians are about to enter their retirement years without adequate income security.
We need to collectively fix this problem facing our nation. We know we cannot rely on the private sector to do so, as they have failed miserably in providing Canadians with decent retirement income. Close to 11 million Canadian workers do not have a private pension plan. These workers must rely on their own individual savings, through contributions to risky RRSPs or other means, for their retirement security.
It’s obvious this approach is not working for most Canadians and the situation is going to get worse if we don’t take action now.
The solution lies within the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Our CPP is the envy of the world: it’s secure, funded on a sound basis and well managed by professional staff independent of government. The only problem with CPP is that benefit levels are way too low to provide Canadians with adequate income security in their retirement.
The best solution to providing Canadians with adequate income in retirement is to expand CPP.
Here are ten excellent reasons why:
1. CPP already covers virtually all Canadian workers
CPP is a national, public, universal workplace pension plan funded exclusively by contributions made by employees and employers at no cost to government. It covers 93% of Canadian workers, whether employed or self-employed, full-time or part-time.
2. CPP offers a guaranteed income to all Canadian retirees
CPP guarantees retirees ongoing certainty with respect to their benefit entitlements. As a national, mandatory defined benefit pension plan, CPP guarantees all Canadian workers a monthly benefit when they retire related to the income they earned during their working lives.
3. CPP provides a number of benefits in addition to a monthly pension
While it is perhaps best known for its retirement pensions, CPP offers many extra benefits that are not available in any other workplace pensions. Additional benefits include disability, death, survivor and children’s benefits. CPP administers the largest long-term disability plan in Canada.
4. CPP is the most portable pension plan in Canada
One of the greatest advantages of this national plan is the continuity of pension coverage it provides employees who change jobs. CPP is fully portable when employees move from job to job across provinces and territories. Because of its more universal and mandatory nature, CPP provides the best continuity of benefits of any pension plan in Canada.
5. CPP benefits rates are increased annually to the rate of inflation
CPP benefits are increased each January based on the annual Consumer Price Index (CPI). These increases are legislated under the Canada Pension Plan Act to ensure that benefits keep up with the cost of living. Even if there are decreases in the cost of living, CPP benefit rates do not decrease. By example, since October 2004, the CPI has increased by 9% while CPP rates increased by 12%.
6. CPP compensates employees for periods of low earnings
Unlike any other pension plan, CPP accommodates different work patterns of parents, other care givers and those with periods of work interruptions. Women especially find the CPP  child-rearing drop-out provision helpful since it allows employees to drop up to seven years of low or zero earning due to child rearing from the calculation of their future benefits (this will increase to eight years by 2012). No other plan allows for this consideration.
7. CPP provides Canadians with a risk free investment
CPP is recognized as one of the most stable plans in the world. It is also one of the largest and fastest-growing pools of assets anywhere in the world. With the built-in expertise of its professional investment managers and strong public sector accountability, CPP significantly reduces risk for employees and employers. It also spreads the risk across generations by pooling life expectancy and investment risk among all contributors and beneficiaries.
8. CPP is well managed with low administration costs
CPP is administered by a professional investment management organization that operates at arm’s length from governments. The investment management costs of CPP are shared by all Canadians so less of the fund is taken up by fees. Only 1.1% of CPP assets are used to manage the fund and these fees are expected to decrease with the growth of the fund. when compared to the high management and broker fees charged by the financial services industry to sell risky RRSPs, the low CPP fees allow Canadians to keep hundreds of dollars more of their monthly retirement income.
9. CPP is secure, stable and sustainable for generations to come
Canada’s Chief Actuary stated in his latest report that the CPP fund is sustainable for at least the next 75 years. Despite even the recent unprecedented market downturn, the CPP fund is expected to deliver the returns required to help sustain the plan for decades and generations. Not one cent of the CPP’s current $130 billion investment portfolio is being used to help pay for pensions today because current contributions more than cover benefits being paid out. It will be at least another 10 years before even a small portion of CPP’s investment income will be needed to help pay for pensions. Beyond that time, CPP will continue to grow for decades to come.
10. CPP plays a significant role in Canada’s economy
Contrary to some misconceptions, CPP benefits are not paid from government revenues. It’s totally funded by contributions from employees, employers and the self-employed in the paid workforce. CPP actually generates more revenues than it pays out in benefits and therefore, contributes to the overall growth of the Canadian economy. In 2009, four million Canadians received $29 billion in benefits. CPP also plays a major role in investing in Canada’s economy with 46% of its investment fund (or $60 billion) invested in Canadian companies and infrastructure.
Expanding CPP will go a long way to improve the financial security of Canadian seniors.
Like all public programs and services, CPP is an important tie that binds us together as a nation. It is an expression of our collective commitment to one another and to the fundamental principle that all citizens have the right to income security and dignity.
We must seize the opportunity that exists today and demand that our political leaders across the country embrace this most sensible, affordable and effective approach to improving retirement security for all Canadians.
 

James Clancy
National President
NUPGE
James Clancy is the national president of the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE), one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE