Good Morning Sisters and Brothers:
Thank you all for coming out to add your voice to fairness and justice for Ontario paramedics.
Here’s an early morning riddle for you. THINK - HARD.
What’s the difference between a firefighter, a police officer and a paramedic?
That’s right! A paramedic can’t retire at age sixty as firefighters and police officers can.
This is discriminatory. This is simply wrong!
Paramedics put their lives on the line very day just as police and firefighters do.
Paramedic work is just as dangerous.
In 2005 the federal government designated paramedics as a public safety occupation, giving them the same status as police and firefighters.
Last fall every union in Ontario that represents paramedics asked the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and its representatives on the OMERS Board to reduce a paramedic’s retirement age to 60 with full pension.
The OMERS board refused.
Just from a fairness point of view the OMERS refusal was mean spirited and unjustified.
From a pension economic funding point of view the OMERS decision is even more ludicrous.
Look, there are only 5,200 paramedics in Ontario. Only five per cent currently would now be able to retire at age 60 in any event.
OMERS and its investment arm manage over $40 billion in assets.
Money managers who can figure out that owning large parts of Bruce Nuclear Power, British seaports, the PEI Confederation Bridge, and yes, even Golf Town Income Fund, you would think they could figure out how to fund a pension plan for no more than a few hundred paramedics who would be able to retire at age sixty over the next couple of years.
The Ontario public expects quality health care. Increasingly paramedics are the first contact patients have with the health care system.
We must ensure paramedics are as valued as all other health professionals, police, and firefighters who keep our communities safe.
Brother and Sisters I want you to write and phone every OMERS trustee, every AMO representative and ask them to reverse the decisions they made last fall.
The OMERS Board needs to reverse its discriminatory decision it made last fall.
OMERS must act now to enshrine dignity, equality and fairness into its pension making decisions.
Thank you all.