Unions at the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission's (ONTC) want a public inquiry into provincial mismanagement of the Crown agency's employee pension fund.
Brian Kelly, spokesman for the General Chairperson's Association (GCA), representing the unions at the ONTC, wants Ontario's finance minister Dwight Duncan to “force his government to come clean as to who is truly responsible for the horrible mismanagement and underfunding of the pension plan.”
In an Aug. 8 statement, Kelly said he was “rocked” by remarks made by Duncan July 19 at the Standing Committee on Estimates where he was quoted in Hansard notes as saying the pension fund has been “completely mismanaged” and played a part in Queen's Park's highly controversial move to divest itself of the agency.
The government's official stance behind divestment has been stagnant passenger rail ridership and the increasing costs of running the North Bay-headquartered transportation and telecommunications entity.
Community leaders across the northeast have called it a 'fire sale' of assets that will impact more than 1,000 jobs.
Kelly said the union and pensioners did not support the McGuinty government's withdrawal of $47.8 million from the pension plan in 2003 and the pension fund contribution holiday imposed by the government.
“ONTC employees, retirees and their surviving spouses need to know the whole truth, even if it requires a public inquiry to do so.”
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