The Pension Coalition is accusing the province of trying to divide and conquer by giving the impression that the retirees are greedy by not agreeing to changes. The Coalition's Clifford Kennedy calls this unethical telling Tide News the retirees, when they were working, agreed not to accept wage increases so they could have secured and guaranteed pensions.
Kennedy charges the government claims the provincial pension plan is running a billion dollar deficit but it's own records from March of last year shows a 141 million dollar surplus.
He adds when the province's pension task force was announced, it was supposed to deal with private pension plans and nothing was said, at the time, about public pensions and the Premier gave no indication the shared risk model would apply to the retirees as well as those provincial government employees still working.
