Once again I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone who publishes this letter and everyone who takes the time to read it a very happy and healthy New Year.
Here we are in a brand new year with so much promise for us all, and with the hope that we will achieve in 2013 the things we sought to achieve in the old year that, for some reason, slipped away from us. Whatever it was we failed with is now just a memory. We all get the opportunity to once again renew our resolve to either do better or be better.
Of course as seniors we are generally pretty good and so it's much more difficult for us old folk to be better than we were, in a manner of speaking. The old saying that may apply here is "if it ain't broke, don't try and fix it."
December was a real mixed-up month when you took the time to listen to and read all the news items. There were stories of incredible achievements made by devoted groups of people helping their fellow men and, in the telling, left us feeling how more fortunate we were than others.
And then there were the other stories. Most days it seemed we had to bear the news that men, women and children in the tens, hundreds and thousands were - not just dying, but - being slaughtered just for being who and where they were. It's all madness and an insanity that seems to have no end.
We all have to hope and pray that someone, somewhere, somehow will be able to put a stop to it all. I know people have tried but we just have to try harder.
Financial pundits are not able to speak with one voice when it comes to what the year 2013 will bring. Some say it has a great deal of promise, whatever that means to a single parent family or a senior living right now on a fixed small income; others say it may be a time for tightening belts. Promise is a strange word to use when the cost of living seems still to be gaining momentum while income, especially pensions, remains static. As for the belt-tightening, an ever increasing number of seniors don't have too many more holes left in their belts.
The cost of staying healthy and eating healthy increases, it appears, on a daily basis. Share a meal programs, food banks and probably food kitchens are going to be seeing a lot more customers if the federal and provincial governments refuse to take a more positive attitude to helping those in need.
Poverty or near poverty is not a comfortable place to live and the number of people living there appears to be on the increase. It has a large number of obvious outcomes that do not reflect well on a country such as Canada.
Hopefully, despite some of the doom and gloom, 2013 will bring some semblance of prosperity and happiness to more of the population of both Saskatchewan and Canada. As seniors we love to see our families doing well and we always want to share with them the good things that happen to them and now, at this time of the year, it is especially true. Time for seniors is a precious commodity and the more time we can spend being pleased or satisfied that we have done everything we can to help family and friends, the better we feel about the time left to us.
If there is the slightest chance we in Canada will fall off this "financial cliff," it is going to be family and friends that will sustain us. Hopefully our own government along with governments of other countries will be able to economically come to grips with these problems and that cliff will just be a very small step down as we progress through 2013.
A problem that will continue is the growing number of up-and-coming seniors. To people in their 80s and 90s, it may all seem a little remote but the truth is it will place a great deal of stress on the social and economic programs that presently exist. The three programs that will face a threat are OAS, GIS and CPP and that should make us all sit up and take notice. Those programs are to a great extent our very lifeblood. We can ill afford to have them weakened. Many seniors depend on them to be able to continue living as they are at present no matter how poor that may seem.
This new year may be the year of change but, whatever change is necessary, it should not be achieved at the expense of those people who made this country of Canada the finest in the world.
As we grow older we tend to take things on a day -to-day basis and really, in many cases, we hesitate to make long-term plans for the best laid plans can go astray. In the short term all we can do is make sure we remain active, stay connected to family and friends and do our best to stay healthy. That is my wish for all seniors and especially the ones here in Saskatchewan, not only for January but for every month that follows.
