What are your thoughts on how the sisip ordeal was handled.

teen im not sure the actual correspondents between sisip/maritime life and the CDS/GOC (8 documents in total, letters emails,ect if memory serves me) were actually made public until the sale to Manulife probably why Manulife insisted on them being made public as a condition of the sale. but yes people did know and put the info out there but it wasn't maritime life SISIP ore the GOC.i fully agree on the arrogance of the GOC they have been that way for a long time and will likely continue to act this way.

propat

teen, your right on the money now the question going around for the pass 10 years or so is sould the goc reduce are armie pension when we get old age pesions? that question has been around for a long time. Maybe one day it will come throught.

propat it was made public many times and by many vet organizations and advocates before the sale to Manulife.

Problem was the GoC of the day was so arrogant in the treatment of veterans they did not care...until someone took them to court. Then they cared.

I call this reckless governing.

yes teen this I know as I already pointed out.

i know sisip was against this clawback but kept it quiet while owned by maritime life it was only on its sale to Manulife that this became public as this was a requirement requested by Manulife fore the sale. this kept them out of a actionable situation and reduced any risk for them. so yes as I said sisip has to follow policy as set by the CDS so they had no choise but to clawback the funds.

none of there objections were made public however until the Manulife purchase.

propat

Well put teen, I know the Liberals will not get my vote, ever.
It was the Liberals that ordered the top heads of the forces, to not allow our company to wear our coat of many colors ( smock ) in public, something that we were very proud of. They said that it was to aggressive.
That I will not forget. ( ever )

propat we could go back and forth on your points but we each have our opinions and insight on this issue.

One thing I want to make perfectly clear with you though is this...SISIP always told the GoC/TB/DND that deducting a tax-free monthly payment from a taxable monthly LTD payment was illegal. Even before Manulife bought Maritime Life.

When the Liberals back in 2000 changed the rules on collecting VAC payments Maritime Life said while you are changing the rules change stop the clawback. The answer..."Shut up! We know what we are doing."

It is every insurance companies legal responsibility to point out illegal clauses in insurance policies. Failure to do so results in the insurance company to pay any legal retributions and loss of certification as an insurance company in Canada.

Proof to what I just stated...who is paying for this illegal clause? The GoC is.

Is the GoC suing Manulife to recoup the money? No. Why? Before Manulife bought Maritime Life they made sure, and most likely laminated, the proper documentation by Maritime Life to the GoC that they notified the policy holder the claw back was illegal?

So Maritime Life or Manulife were always pointing out to a very deaf ruling government that they were "stealing" money from injured veterans.

teen yup you knew it was coming and probably knew it would be me lol. I wouldn't really call it blowback though just a difference of opinion but you can call it what you will.

1.you can rent office space in Halifax not a problem even with lockable file cabinets of all things even a lockable door for when they are done work for the day.

2.if their employees are qualified to read are files and do the calculations they are qualified to transport them in sealed boxes.in lue of that any bonded armed security firm can do the job.

3.they could train the 20 employees as fast as they could train the 20.

4.yes they had 6 months to do the claims but I seen nothing in the agreement saying they were not allowed to finish early.

5.this is just to answer the question of are opinion on how sisip handled this so no there is and was nothing we can do about it as for moast of this proses we have absolutely no control and ore opinions were unwelcome and even stifled.

6.they could rent there added space until the retro is complete no forever ore even on a 1 year lease.

7.i know sisip was against this clawback but kept it quiet while owned by maritime life it was only on its sale to Manulife that this became public as this was a requirement requested by Manulife fore the sale. this kept them out of a actionable situation and reduced any risk for them. so yes as I said sisip has to follow policy as set by the CDS so they had no choise but to clawback the funds.

8.im not sure where you worked teen but where I worked when asked to do the unlikely ore even thought by moast impossible task I would tell them straight to their face in no uncertain terms what I thought and always with a solution the normal response from these idiots was no do it and do it my way. then the normal final protest from me "OK BUT THIS IS FRACKED" and the following SOP response from them "MAKE IT HAPPEN" and I would, ore frackin near kill myself trying.of coure out of sight I would do it my way witch always made things a whole lot easier.

9.yes it would have increased SISIPS operating budget for 6 moths to a year. the thing is I really don't give a flying frack about their operating budget.

always question authority

propat

Everybody as a different story. Some of us have called MC with questions and were given an answer and then you have another person that calls them with the same questions and get a different answer. And very same with SISIP.
You can do a lot to me but please don't steal from me or lie to me and they both have done just that. It's not over as I wait for this lottery and I know from some information that I received that I will still have a battle unless someone at SISIP as mis-advise me.
If it wasn't from this site, I would be at a loss and much more overwhelmed than I am now.
This whole process has been very overwhelming for so many people and the sad part is it feels that they make you crawl for what is rightfully yours.
It's not over until everybody gets there settlement and behond for some others.
I'm hoping to be in the next lottery and hoping and praying that everybody else gets the best answer from that claim form.
We have 8 days till the next draw and then October 14 at 23:59 for the next and it should all be completed for the ones that have been waiting since the beginning.

Good luck to all

As I sit here and ponder this whole process that took place with this class action suit I am left with a very sour taste in my yap the anxiety ,depression ,anger oh and the extra grey hair that this whole process has caused I personally would like to thank you MC,SISIP AND THE GOC. Now if ther was nobody to blame for any of this then why do we as vets feel goddamed used and abused by this whole process people made money of our backs money that was rightfully ours in the first place. Am I thankfull for those who fought to make a wrong a right yes but I will be alot happier when all vets get what is coming to them hopefully by October 15 or sooner.Everybody has there own opinion on this subject and I for one will not bash any of them even though i may not agree with some of them, for me I will use a line from a movie I watched a long time ago , THIS WHOLE PROCESS IS A CLUSTER F.CK ( HEARTBREAK RIDGE) did this process work yes could it been better yes am I happy with the way files were done HELL NO.

PRO PATRIA

Bye the way Ron and Zero Sum bang on both of you I just did not feel poetic this evening, a pile of mud is still a pile of mud even if a clean it up it is still a pile of mud. Anyhow it's late I am feeling the pressure of being the last in line and to be honest it fuckin sucks but hey I got you buggers to get me through it, so dig in just a bit longer.

Where oh where has my little puppet gone oh where oh where has he gone, bottom line is who really gives a rats ass. I have no resect for anyone other than Stephen Harper, why you ask? He gave us Stephen Toope who in turn gave McInnes Cooper a real job, a take it or leave it smile and voila case closed. As far as Manuge was concerned he came he saw he opened his gaping pie hole he left a symbol of greatness and I wish him well, a damn wishing well at that, for at the bottom of that is my donation for your, how do say in Englsh work.
McInnes Cooper well done glad you listen to your clients oh yeah we are not clients we are loosely clad group of ole farts with deep pockets who ironically crave money more than communication, that is why after Toopes Victory you still can not find away to communicate but hey 34,000,000'and counting who needs to assist us old farts.

For the veterans whom I might add have been the lost commodity here you all make me proud as I have seen no I in team here, outstanding dedication and loyalty to each other. It saddens me to see how great we have become because we all should have been a team a long time ago and should we have done so this whole situation would have been very real with very real results.

Yes I am coming across as bitter and totally ungrateful because I as a Canadian Veteran I shouldn't be here period. I should along with all veterans be honoured for service yet here we are fighting for our stolen money our rights to be honoured as real heroes and to be respected. I for one do not want to fight with Manuge, MC or the GOC but since none of them have any displayed any once of respect then why in hell would I grovel or kiss their asses for what is mine. SISIP has answered the bell albeit slow as molasses in January (better be Ocober) I will wait but do not ask me to thank anyone but my brothers and sisters who fought the fight long before these clowns jumped on board.
FOR COUNTRY TROOPS FOR GOD AND MAN FOR MY BROTHERS

Well said Teen...although we have our creative differences, I believe we've all covered the bases on what most people have thought and are thinking. BTW, I added in the other "subjects" in my pros & cons scenario just to air my thoughts...sometimes it feels like it's all connected in one way or another. It'll be over soon, a lot of grief and stress will fall away when it does.

I know I'm going to get blowback on this post but...

OK reality check here people on how many "extra" people SISIP should have hired.  Let's look at the situation shall we:

1. Probably over 80% of the clients files are on paper in a box with a month and year written on the outside of it.
2. SISIP in Halifax has an office but not an overly sized office
3. As boxes came out of storage or vault it would take room in the work area's of SISIP employees for them to open and work on.
4. All files/boxes are confidential so moving to a bigger rented office space was out of the question for security reasons.
5. Each "temporary" employee had to be trained on doing retro claims for each client...by hand.  There was/is no computer program to do the calculations and anyone who thinks there is a computer program to do 7500 claims that are all different is talking out of their ass!
6. Pulling employee's out of the field that are trained to understand and do retro claims would/were not pulled out of the field to do the work.  Why?  SISIP still had obligations to their day to day clients and to think that SISIP would bring this work to a 6 month halt of normal operations is absolutely stupid!
7. SISIP has 6 months to do this work.  If Justice Barnes thought this was too long then he would have shortened it.  If SISIP didn't think they could do it they would have asked for more time.

It is not Oct. 15 so as per the final judgement SISIP has until Oct 15 to complete the claims.  So sorry but there is absolutely nothing we can do, ask, demand, or want SISIP to do to get the claims done faster.

How many times in your military career did you say to yourself "My boss wants it done by when?  Good f'n luck with that order!"

To put it in a context for everyone to understand...why would SISIP in Halifax rent an office space of 4000 square feet when all they needed before this lawsuit was 2000 square feet?

Optics people...stop and think about it.

Zero your post was well thought out but VAC, VRAB and SISIP had absolutely no dog in this fight. It was straight up SISIP CLIENTS v DND/TB/GoC...period!

I know no one wants to believe me when I say this but SISIP since the creation of the LTD program was telling the GoC/TB/DND that deducting a tax-free payment from VAC from a taxable LTD program was wrong! I have had not only SISIP people tell me this but bureaucrats in VAC/DND/TB tell me this. But for some reason all governing political parties did absolutely nothing to correct the mistake.

I do agree that the flow of information on all the major categories of interests, tax penalties, work sheets, income tax help have truly been ignorant and suppressed towards helping veterans in this absolutely unique situation.

Being constantly told if MC was to fight harder in negotiations for better treatment would have led to the case going back to court is something I cannot believe or even understand?

The in-fighting between the Lead Plaintiff and members of the class rests solely on the shoulders of the Lead Plaintiff not doing his job. This fault lays directly at the feet of the law firm McInnes Cooper. They should have instructed/guided/helped the lead plaintiff on how to "inform" the class and "help" the class understand the legal proceedings..

As for the legal fees MC was looking for the only thing I can say is even the Mafia has a conscious when it comes to stealing money! MC knew this whole legal issue was for, at most, $500 million dollars. So to "creatively" write up your bill about money going forward was pure 100% greed. And believe me MC wanted to bill money going forward.

As much as we want to call the GoC the enemy it's a 50/50 situation. Yes they were the enemy but they were also trying to save tax-payers money. So I can and cannot forgive their stubborn ways during the whole 7 plus years.

Thanks propat. I fully agree with your points, they should have hired extra bodies...better more than too few.

well thought out and well said zero although I may not agree with everything I did enjoy reading. on sisip my points are quite simple they should have hired 20 extra staff instead of 4 then few would be waiting any length if any time at all and with that staff they should have started all the calcs asap. all of your info should have been givin to you any time you asked by their regular staff. lastly sisip has to follow policy as set by the CDS.

propat