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HARD WORK PAYING OFF FOR SINGER Mission’s Carly Rae Jepsen stays hungry, humble M
THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012
PAGE 18
NEW LEASH ON LIFE Mission cane corso the first dog in B.C. to receive a prosthetic limb PAGE 4
Fantastic fiddlers Kai and Lia Gronberg took second place in the senior category of the annual Mission Optimist Youth Talent Show last Saturday night at the Clarke Theatre. For the full list of winners, see story on page 28. BOB FRIESEN PHOTO
Federal budget drops one cent coin BY PHIL MELNYCHUK Black Press
Next fall, your pocket will feel lighter as the penny joins the $2 bill and disappears from Canadian currency. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced in Thursday’s federal budget that Canada is joining the U.K. and Australia in dropping the penny from production. One reason, it costs 1.6 cents to produce and it buys only a twelfth of what
it used to. About time, says Fay Arnold, a senior who used to work in a bank and as a waitress. “It’s a nuisance,” she said while waiting to get her hair done. “We don’t need the penny.” She wasn’t as happy, though, with other parts of federal finance. Seniors are still struggling with meagre pensions, women in particular. Arnold scrapes by on a minimum Canada pension along with Old Age Security and Guar-
anteed Income Supplement of just more than $500 a month each. “How can you possibly live on $1,200 a month? There’s an awful lot of seniors living by themselves, women especially, that are having an awfully hard time of it.” However, pensioners for the next decade at least, escaped any big changes. The eligibility age to collect Old Age Security won’t begin to change to 67 until 2023, leaving the younger generation stuck with collecting at a later age.
“If you were born in 1958 or later, this will affect you, but not before that,” explained local MP Randy Kamp. Starting next year, people can also defer collecting their OAS for five years so that by the time they do start receiving, they’ll get a fatter cheque. There are no tax increases in the budget which forecasts a deficit of $1.3 billion in 2014, then returning See GOV’T Page 5
SHOOTING IN HATZIC One man is dead and one man seriously wounded in a shooting on Manson Street. PAGE 3
HUNT FOR EGGS This Sunday’s annual Easter egg hunt is in its 19th year at Fraser River Heritage Park. PAGE 15
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