From right to left: David Budden, Treasurer Mike Siscoe, President Sharron Callahan, VP DR. Nic Kum and board member Linda Oldford.

 

By Karen Bliss

 

David Budden was in the same career for almost 40 years, sales manager at audio/visual retailer West End Electronics, before joining the board of CARP’s Newfoundland & Labrador Chapter in 2016. He says he always had a retirement plan. 

 

“There’s our RRSPs that you had to contribute to so you knew that you had to do things to make it possible to retire,” he tells CARP. “Working in the private sector, there’s no company pension so you have to look out for yourself. I was smart enough to know that I had to do that.”

 

Budden, 70, says the main reason he joined CARP was to get behind Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) reform and the elimination of mandatory withdrawals.

 

“I was too young when I joined to have to worry about the RRIF,” he says, “but the idea of the government mandating that you take a certain percentage of your retirement income out every month, whether you need it or not, didn’t make sense. From their point of view, I understand because they want the tax income from it every year. But from my perspective if you don’t need the money, it shouldn’t have to be forced upon you to take it out.

 

“The good news is that the national [CARP] office was on board and there have been some wins over the years, not in terms of eliminating mandatory withdrawals, but the percentage. So governments have been listening to us.”

 

One might assume Budden comes from a financial background, but not even close. His wife, Sandra, was a banker, but he originally thought he would be a high school history teacher before making a career of his second love, music. 

 

He was born in Toronto and came to Newfoundland with his parents when he was 13, moving to Carbonear, a town of about 5000 people. His four siblings were considerably older than him, so he was the only one who had to move. After high school, he enrolled in Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, earning a Bachelor of Arts in history, then a Bachelor of Education.

 

“When I graduated, there were no jobs available. I tried everywhere, Yukon, Northwest Territories, coastal Labrador, you name it. There was not a job to be had,” he says, adding only one person in his graduating class of 42 people got a job. So, he turned to Plan B.

 

“I was always into the audio stereo equipment and music, so I managed to hook a job with a local audio/visual store. I was there for a couple of years until I moved to another one and that’s where I spent the next 36 years.”

 

The company was West End Electronics, which halfway through his tenure joined with Vancouver’s Audio Video Unlimited. “That really helped the company quite a bit,” he says. “The company was around for over 50 years.”

 

Budden never learned an instrument — “I play the stereo,” he quips — but his wife plays piano and his daughter, Sarah, earned a music degree from Toronto’s York University. He once had a 1500-piece vinyl record collection until he sold them and replaced them with CDs. Yes, he regrets that decision.  

 

“I still have a good turntable, and I still buy the occasional piece of vinyl,” he says. “I’m a child of the 70s. There’s a lot of rock. I have a fairly eclectic taste, everything except country & western.” While visiting his daughter, who lives in Picton, Ont, in August, he came to Toronto to see The Who at Budweiser Stage. “It was a great show,” he says. 

 

For more than 20 years, he was also an active member in the local basketball community, as a referee. He had played through high school, but wasn’t good enough to make a university team. He coached his daughter through high school. “And after that was finished, I said, ‘well, it’s time to stay in the game,’ so I started refereeing.”

 

Budden first learned about CARP from his sisters, who are 20 years his senior. “They were well ahead of me on that stuff. I remember seeing CARP magazines in my sister’s house long before I retired and when my wife retired in 2008, I gave her a CARP membership. 

 

“With her membership, we were going to meetings and things for a few years until I retired in February 2016. And when I retired, I said, ‘Well, I think this is something that I would like to be involved in, the advocacy side of things in particular.’” 

 

He joined CARP NL that same year, then in 2018 successfully ran for an executive position. “I was given the Membership Chair role, no doubt due to my previous sales history,” he says. “I continue in that position to date.”

 

In addition to RRIF reform, and other things that are national in scale, locally, Budden says, their Chapter has the ear of the federal members. 

 

“We meet with them at least once or twice a year, so they understand who we are and what we’re advocating for. They appear to listen. They seem to take it back, but it’s hard for a backbencher to bring things forward. If you’re not in Cabinet, you’ve got troubles. We’ve been lucky. We do have a couple of Cabinet ministers that have been in there.”

 

CARP – NL has 12 members on the board and have held meetings on Zoom since the pandemic.  “We do get together occasionally in person, but there’s one member in Gander; that’s halfway across the island, three and a half hours away, so Zoom is wonderful,” Budden says. “It’s an excellent board. Everybody is always doing something. There’s always people willing to pull their weight. It’s not one person doing everything. 

 

“Our Chairperson, Sharron Callahan, is the volunteer extraordinaire. She heads up all kinds of other things besides our local Chapter. The old saying, if you want something done, find a busy person, she’s quite amazing.”

 

He says their Chapter has been fortunate over the last several years to get the New Horizons for Seniors grants from the federal government. “We’re getting close to $25,000 a year, so we’re offering our members a lot of things that I don’t think are happening in other locations.”

 

The offerings include online yoga classes, online conversational French classes and a monthly online book club. They also do at least two in-person meetings a year. 

 

“One is at the Memorial University Botanical Gardens, where we get our members a free admission and provide them with a lunch and, in November, we do something called Seniors in Science, which is held at the [Johnson] GEO Centre in St. John’s, which is now owned by the university as well. So, we go in and have presentations on science and, again, we provide a lunch.”

 

Budden is remaining at CARP, but retired from basketball in May. He was awarded the President’s Award “in recognition of outstanding service, leadership and lasting contributions to the St. John’s Association of Basketball Officials.” However, he did sneak in some volunteering in August for the 2025 Canada Summer Games that were held in St. John’s. “I was a minor official for the basketball tournament,” he says. 

 

His daughter moved from Toronto to Picton, Prince Edward County last year, and he has a granddaughter Avery, who is almost two, he and Sandra love to visit.

 

“Travel’s always been a big part of our agenda anyway,” he says. “We usually go to Europe or some other place once a year if we can. With Mr. Trump down south, we can’t go south anymore.  Not that we really went there anyway, but that would be a jumping-off spot for a cruise. We are going to Peru in May to Machu Picchu. That was on my bucket list. I thought I was going to do that when I first retired, but it’s been 10 years now, but we’re finally going to get there.”