Letters & emails
There is an urgent need to increase awareness of our campaign in the UK
Email Current MP In Your Old Constituency
Anyone with access to the internet can contribute to the correspondence columns of on-line newspapers. In addition, one could contribute to discussion groups on various like-minded associations, or even simply e-mail friends and relatives in the UK to remind them that the POLITICAL ADVOCACY campaign is ongoing and that we need their help in “spreading the word”….
For the upcoming Commonwealth Day on 12thMarch 2012, suggested letter or email to:
Senator Hugh D. Segal Special Envoy for Commonwealth Renewal
Senate of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A4
Dear Senator Segal
British Government discrimination against some Commonwealth Citizens
I write to you in advance of the upcoming Commonwealth Day on 12th March, a day in which we recognise the importance of the Commonwealth and the principles of the Singapore Declaration of “equality and dignity everywhere”.
Yet at this time over half a million Commonwealth citizens are treated by the British Government significantly less favorably than their counterparts living in non-Commonwealth countries.
In this, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, I would ask you to use your position as Special Envoy for Commonwealth Renewal to urge your counterparts in the UK to bring an end to the discrimination felt by over 500,000 frozen British State pensioners. These pensioners, because of where they have chosen to live in retirement, have their British State pension frozen at the rate it was when first received. Another half million British pensioners living outside the UK have their British pensions indexed every year, just as if they lived in the UK.
It is particularly galling for us in Canada that across the border in the USA, a country without the ties we have to the British crown, British state pensions are indexed annually. In Canada there are almost 160,000 people affected by this cruel policy which affects people more severely the more elderly and vulnerable they become.
The cost to the British Government of righting this historical and illogical policy is just 0.7% of the annual pension budget.
Sincerely,
Each Year, A Birthday Card to Her Majesty The Queen
The time has come to ask for your help again. April 21st is HM the Queen’s birthday, not her official birthday, her real one. We think this provides an ideal opportunity to make Her Majesty aware of our frozen pensions plight again. We’d like all of you to go out and buy her a birthday card, a real one, not send an electronic one. Then we’d like you to hand write a message (see below) into that card. So make sure you buy one that has a plain sheet inside it and is physically big enough for you to write the message. Once you have it ready mail it to:
Her Majesty The Queen,
Buckingham Palace, London,
SW1A 1AA
Here is the message to write inside the card:
Happy Birthday Your Majesty. From a UK Basic State Pensioner living in Canada whose pension is frozen at the *insert year* rate. Over half a million pensioners, living mostly in Commonwealth countries, are victims of your Government’s pension freezing policy while another half million, living in countries like the USA and the Philippines, have their pensions uprated annually.
Then sign and mail your card. If you send this from a couple, feel free to change the singulars to plurals in the first sentence e.g., From two British State Pensioners living in Canada whose pensions are frozen at the *insert year* rate.
- Many thanks!
- Tony Bockman,
- Chairman, ICBP
