In the Dec. 14th issue of the Echo there was an excellent letter by Jeremy Bell. However, certain other information needs explaining.
1. The 350 disabled employees and all other employees had made contributions to an employee insurance and long term disability plan. These contributions were never put into any insurance plan but were added to Nortel's general income.
2. The Sun Life Assurance Company never received any monies from Nortel who merely hired Sun Life to administer the plan. It therefore does not owe the Nortel employees any insurance coverage.
3. One has to ask whether the bankruptcy is a scam designed to allow Nortel to lay off its employees without insurance benefits for which they have paid and to allow the company to start up again under another name.
4. Since the very executives who ran the company into the ground have received millions of dollars in "bonuses" some people are asking whether the whole affair is a scam.
5. Others are also asking whether or not the Senators who voted Bill S-216 down are in any way connected with this scam. What else is there to think?
6. What is surely Nortel's problem will now be converted to a taxpayer problem as all the employees are now jobless, incomeless and without insurance benefits will have to apply for public assistance.
Only in Canada you say. Canada, the Banana Republic but with no bananas.
Don Burns
Original article on Canada.com website
Videos about the Nortel disabled pensioners
(created by investor advocate Diane Urquhart)