Manitoba Liberals give a major boost to retired teachers.

On May 10, I spoke in support of the private members bill initiated by Cindy Lamoureux, the Liberal MLA for Tyndall Park.  This bill provides retired teachers representation on the TRAF Board – the board which oversees the pensions of retired teachers.   This has long been desired by retired teachers – to give them representation on the board which oversees the money for their retirement.  Following the debate on this bill, it passed second reading and will now be going to committee in the fall.  My comments are below.

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Madam Speaker, I will speak just very briefly.

      I think this is an im­por­tant initiative by my colleague from Tyndall Park. It is really, in­cred­ibly im­por­tant that RTAM be represented on the TRAF board. This is, in essence, money which is going to retired teachers; it is their money. Demo­cracy, a major principle is that those who are involved should be able to be represented, and I think it's about time that this happened.

      I think the people who are concerned about conflicts of interest and things like that, that the problem here, if any, is that RTAM repre­sen­tatives want, more than anybody else, this fund to perform well. And so, I think all of us want a fund which is sus­tain­able and performs well, and I think that there's no one better to ensure that than people from RTAM who have the wisdom and ex­per­ience over many years to contribute in this way.

      I want to thank the retired teachers who con­tri­bu­ted so much during the COVID pandemic, because that was really in­cred­ibly im­por­tant that they were here and helping to save our edu­ca­tion system, quite frankly. And they did an in­cred­ible job, and for that we thank teachers who retired, who came back and rallied to help students at a difficult time.

      So, those are my comments. Thank you. Merci. Miigwech.