The province has also waived the application fee for requesting additional funds for two years, until April 1, 2011, noting it’s rare for FSCO to reject such requests. But if so, why do we need a bureaucracy to consider them in the first place?
Ontario’s access restrictions are similar to those of the federal government and less restrictive than some other provinces.
But they’re only half way to Saskatchewan’s, which in 2002 provided seniors with 100% access to their funds. As Susan Eng, vice-president of advocacy for the seniors’ rights group CARP, which is lobbying for 100% access to these funds in Ontario notes, there’s been no breakdown of the social order in Saskatchewan.
A major irritant for Ontario seniors is that in 1999, the then Mike Harris Conservative government passed legislation allowing 60 MPPs 100% access to their own locked-in retirement accounts. While McGuinty and other opposition MPPs voted against this at the time, they benefit from that change today.
So why, thousands of seniors ask, can’t they get the same access to their retirement funds as McGuinty and Company? Good question.
Keywords: retirement, pension
