# 'Gold-digger' Veteran Clause 'Unfair'



## Bruce Monkhouse (12 Jan 2010)

I did not know this.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/11/12425931-qmi.html
MP : 'Gold-digger' veteran clause 'unfair' 
By Althia Raj - Parliamentary Bureau 
    
OTTAWA — The government should repeal “archaic” restrictions that deny women who marry aging veterans the ability to collect their dead husbands’ pensions, says an NDP MP. 
The clause, which was initially implemented to prevent “gold-diggers” from preying upon older servicemen, is “unfair” and “discriminatory,” charged MP Peter Stoffer. 

“These people are not Anna Nicole (the former Playboy model who married an 89-year-old oil baron when she was 26). They are not gold-diggers. They are respectable people of our society and they deserve to be treated fairly,” he said. 

Stoffer’s private member’s bill would allow a veteran’s survivor to receive an annual allowance even if the marriage occurred after the veteran turned 60. 

“If you remarried at 59 this isn’t a problem, but if you remarried at 60 it is a problem,” Stoffer said. 
Second World War veteran Jerry Bowen said if his wife was a gold-digger, they never would have married in their 70s.  
  
“The very thought that when I pass on — which won’t be too many years away — I have no way of leaving any part of my pension to my wife ... there is something sinful about that,” Bowen said. 

Stoffer plans to introduce a similar bill for the RCMP


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## dapaterson (12 Jan 2010)

If you want your benefits improved (ie add the ability to provide a pension to a spouse yo marry after 60) you have to pay more for the benefits.

Otherwise, you're just shafting the currently serving members whose premiums go up to pay for something you didn't pay for.

Exactly like CPP - those retired today never paid for what they're getting; and those significantly younger will pay much more to get much less.


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## the 48th regulator (12 Jan 2010)

Is this for the VAC pension, or the military pension?

It seems this clause is written for the VAC, older charter.

dileas

tess


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## Old Sweat (12 Jan 2010)

This refers to the military pension. The rule was instituted in 1901, at about the time Canada introduced a military pension scheme for the permanent force. I read once that it was a result of the US experience in the 1890s when enterprising young ladies started marrying elderly Civil War veterans to collect survivor benefits after the death of their husbands. And, of course, 60 was quite old back then.


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## mariomike (12 Jan 2010)

Bruce Monkhouse said:
			
		

> Stoffer’s private member’s bill would allow a veteran’s survivor to receive an annual allowance even if the marriage occurred after the veteran turned 60.



I was surprised as well age the age limit when I read that story. However, the explanation in Reply #3 made complete sense. 
At the municipal seminar I attended they said there was a widow collecting *SIX* lifetime survivor pensions. Because they continue when you re-marry. She apparently had a thing for old coppers! There are no age restrictions on either party about getting married, as long as she is 18 or older. ( Reminds me of the guy who said, "She's too young to be my daughter, that's my wife!" Probably the same guy who said, "I feel like a 21 year old. But, there's never one around!"  ;D
One important thing however, it that the Eligible Spouse is the one you were married to on the day you retired. That is, if you should divorce and re-marry after retirement, your pension goes to the spouse you were married to on the day you retired ( if s/he is still alive ), not your spouse at time of death. Your will can not change that. 
At the seminar, they said a lot of post-retirement spouses are very surprised and disappointed when they find out they are not the Eligible Spouse.


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## Dennis Ruhl (12 Jan 2010)

A very normal civilian pension plan offers options.  The options might be for the life of the pensioner; life of the pensioner with a 10 year guarantee; the life of the last surviving spouse; or the life of the last surving spouse with a 10 year guarantee;  or a cash payout into a locked-in RRSP.  Each pension would have different options and each option pays a different monthly amount and no future wives are anticipated in the payments.

CPP spousal benefits are ridiculous.  I know someone on her third husband who still collects the benefit of the first spouse who died 30-40 years ago.  I don't know why a payment term limit based on the length of marriage or minority of children wasn't instituted.


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