During the recent election, the issue of public pensions arose when a representative of the Progressive Conservative Party responded to a question from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) regarding closing the gap between public and private pensions.

CFIB Question: "Will you address the public/private sector pension gap by gradually moving new hires from a defined-benefit to defined-contribution pension plans?

PC Response:"We will review approaches to decreasing the public/private pension gap."

It could safely be assumed that narrowing the gap would include reducing public pensions as opposed to enriching private pensions.

Since a strong pension plan is critical to recruiting and retaining nurses, and MNU had just recently negotiated improvements to the existing pension plan, the possibility of losing this important benefit was cause for concern.

MNU took the opportunity to call upon all party leaders to make their position clear regarding nurses'pensions. We issued a media release to raise the issue during the election and sent each leader a letter asking them to clarify their party's position.

Premier Greg Selinger, NDP Leader sent the following response:

"We are committed to maintaining a defined benefit pension plan not only for the duration of the existing collective agreement, but beyond. Manitoba nurses deserve nothing less."

The other parties committed to maintain the current pensions for the life of our collective agreement,expiring March 2013.