It was in December 1969 when the originators, Corabel Penfold, Harry Simpson and Don Booth got together to make plans and discuss the best way of taking public action. They finally came to the conclusion that the most immediate relief from their problems could come from the changes in the tax structure. They decided then to seek higher income tax exemption.

The decision was opportune because at this time changes in the Income Tax Act were imminent. The Minister of Finance, The Hon. Mr. Benson, had issued a White Paper on Taxation Revisions which was then under consideration.

To seek implementation of their objectives, Mr. Robert Kaplan, then Liberal Member of Parliament for Don Valley, recommended personal letters from individual pensioners to the Minister of Finance and copies to their own MPs outlining their own financial problems and suggesting possible solutions. He stressed that form letters were ignored, but personal letters no matter how unconventional in form or composition, carried more weight and were by far the most effective method of reaching governments. Thus Phase 1 was concerned exclusively with the promotion of letter writing, a wide publicity campaign to arouse pensioners to the necessity of writing letters on their own problems.

Meetings were held with senior citizen and rate payer groups and interviews followed on CBC National Radio Network and other radio stations. In the coverage of the PCC story which followed, it is interesting to note that only the first two radio interviews had been requested by the organization. The idea had caught on like wildfire and the media was eager to publicize this young and growing organization working in the pensioners' cause. There was a tremendous response from coast to coast showing, wide interest in pensioners' problems.

1. Exemption from the Capital Gains Tax, then under consideration was added to the objectives.
2. Food for Thought, the first official literature, was produced and widely distributed.
3. Thousands of individual letters went forward to governments. Additional PCC members now strengthened the organization.
4. Brief submitted on the need for educational facilities in the province for training of chiropodists. The legislation at the time denied acceptance and licensing of adequately qualified specialists from all jurisdictions with the exception of the United States. (Chiropody is now being taught in Ontario).
5. Extend health services to include payment in full for prescription drugs and essential equipment. Glasses, dentures, vaccines, hearing aids, ambulance service, the service of drugless practioners, chiropractors, osteopaths, optometrists, and chiropodists.
6. Encourage more doctors to make emergency house calls. (House calls are rarely made today but last year we heard from Woodsworth Award winner Dr. Mark Nowaczynski that he has closed his family practice in order to spend all of his clinical time outside of the office setting caring for frail house bound seniors).
7. Require all doctors to pre-scribe drugs by their generic names.
8. Provide supportive assistance to enable pensioners to remain in their own house or other choice of accommodation. (The Ontario Government now has an Aging at Home Strategy under the direction of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.)
9. Establish more foster homes for the elderly.
10. Exemption from the educational tax because of low average income. (This is not an issue that we would support today.)
11. Transportation. (This year the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care provided communities with vans that will enable seniors at a very low cost to have more freedom in using the community and be less home bound.)
12. Assistance with shovelling snow, cutting grass, digging in the garden, shopping, laundry, household repairs e.g. leaky taps, cooking nutritious meals. Perhaps these chores could be done by other seniors or younger people through a grant. [Today there is Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) This was presented at last year's AGM by Dr. Paul Williams co-chair with Janet Lum of the Canadian Research Network for Care in the Community (CRNCC)].

CPC continues the work that was determined by the founders to be necessary, that is, that seniors bring to the attention of all governments, their concerns about the affairs of the day that have impact on them. Social justice for all, not just seniors is now CPC's aim.