Fed up with decades of being shortchanged, the Canadian Alliance of British Pensioners (CABP), which has several hundred members in Mississauga, is hosting a series of information sessions across the country in its fight with the U.K. government.

The meeting in Mississauga takes place this Saturday at Erin Mills United Church (3010 The Collegeway), from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Another session, for east Mississauga residents, will be held at St. James United Church (400 Burnhamthorpe Rd.) in Etobicoke, from 10 a.m.-noon.

"The issue affects expatriates who have worked in the United Kingdom and have paid into the state pension. Now that they're living in Canada, they find their pensions are not indexed for inflation. That is, they're frozen," said CABP member Peter Nelson, who worked in Britain for 10 years and now lives in Mississauga.

The strange fact is that if they had gone to the U.S., Germany, Liechtenstein, Jamaica or even the Falkland Islands, their pensions would have been indexed. Many of the pensioners who don't receive increases live in Commonwealth countries. These include an estimated 254,000 in Australia, 151,000 in Canada, 37,100 in New Zealand and 36,000 in South Africa.

Nelson says all expatriate pensioners should be treated the same and not discriminated against because of the location they choose to live out their retirement years.

"The amount should be the same as if they were still living in the U.K. There's no sense of fair play...it isn't cricket," he said.

And the loss to retirees isn't minimal. The CABP cites the case of a woman who retired in 1974 at age 60 and emigrated to Canada to be near her children: 25 years later, she had lost an estimated $89,200 through pension payments being frozen. She would have received just $22.34 a week, amounting to a total over 25 years of $31,220, against the figure of approximately $120,000 she would have received had payments not been capped.

The British government's official position is that the annual increase is not paid to pensioners in all foreign countries because "reciprocal treaty arrangements" were agreed to with some countries, but not others.

A call by The News to the British High Commission in Ottawa for comment was not returned.

According to CABP estimates, it would cost the U.K. $936 million, about one per cent of the total pension budget, to correct the situation.

But the British government continues to resist. In 2005, it fought and won a case in the House of Lords against Annette Carson, who emigrated to South Africa in 1989 and wanted her pension to rise in line with cost of living. The ruling described Carson's sense of grievance as "understandable, but not justified" and stated that "the primary function of social security benefits is to provide a basic standard of living for the inhabitants of the U.K."

Interestingly, notes the CABP, Canada helped finance the court challenge because the government would save $23 million a year if it did have to top up the incomes of British expats who are living here below the poverty line.

Alliance lobbyist John Markham was in London earlier this year to meet with government officials. During his stay, a proposed amendment to the Pensions Bill was rejected. It was a fortuitous move, said Markham, because it would have resulted in pensions being indexed only from their current level.

"For example, the hardest hit frozen pensioners, such as 20-year expats, would likely never receive much (more) than their current frozen amount, while new expats would be uprated as though they had never left the UK," he said.

However, during the course of debate, Pensions Minister James Parnell publicly conceded an important point the Alliance has been making for years - that it's not legally necessary to have a reciprocal arrangement before making indexed pension payments; the government could do it unilaterally.

"This official statement represents a vital breach in the government's defences, destroying as it does any logical or legal reason for the differentiation between expatriate pensioners," said Markham.

CABP and its supporters are mounting a final court challenge, this time taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

For more information, call 1-888-591-3964 or visit www.britishpensioners.com

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