Today I had sent off an inquiry to Leon Benoit, MP (Conservative) for Vegreville-Wainwright, about a URL for the Handbook for Seniors.

In the meantime, I looked for it on the Internet a bit more, and guess what, I found it, in the most logical place for it, on Leon Benoit’s website.  The reason why Internet searches for the Handbook provided no results is most likely that the Handbook had just today been published on Leon Benoit’s website, which is somewhat surprising, given that the document was created and last modified 19/11/2010 6:52:57 AM.

I suppose that my suggestion today to have the Handbook available on-line and that it was posted just today on Leon Benoit’s website is a mere coincidence, however improbable that may be.

Here is the URL for the Handbook for Seniors:

[1] http://www.leonbenoit.ca/media/20110113_Benoit_Seniors%20Handbook%20FINAL.PDF

I downloaded a copy of the handbook (4MB) and will copy it to the PC at the Seniors Club.

Unfortunately, although the Handbook does have an index, the index is not linked, so that it is not a simple matter to go to a specific chapter, section or page. Still, it is possible to navigate to any desired location in the handbook through,

1. Scrolling to the desired page, or through
2. Copying text from the index, pasting it into the PDF search feature and searching for it, after which one just has to click on the instances listed in the search-return list.

That is better than nothing, and one should not expect our governments to weave miracles or even to be practical.  I guess that a linked index for a large PDF file is simply too much to ask for.

The good thing about the Handbook is that even though it contains a large volume of government propaganda, all of the links shown in the document appear to be functional and permit accessing the locations identified.  That even applies to the e-mail addresses shown for the MLAs whose constituencies overlap with that of Leon Benoit, but it stops there.  If you wish to find an e-mail address for any government agency, you will have to go to the website of that agency to be able to obtain it.

To become fully familiar with all of the information contained in the Handbook will most likely require a very large amount of time, probably more time than even retired seniors can or care to devote to that task.  However overwhelming the large volume of information in the Handbook may be, on balance it may be useful, provided one has enough patience to wade through it all, and provided one is willing to spend the time required to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For instance, if one is looking for information on “Tax Savings for Seniors and Pensioners”, it is somewhat difficult to determine how taxes can be saved by anyone, considering that one had to go through a susbtantial amount of information like:

HOW THE CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT HAS HELPED SENIORS
TAX RELIEF AND MONETARY SAVINGS FOR SENIORS

Our Conservative Government has introduced landmark changes to ease
the tax burden on Canadian seniors since 2006 providing nearly $2
billion annually in tax relief to seniors and pensioners, including:
• Increased the age credit twice, in 2006 and again in 2009, by $1,000
each time, which provides additional tax savings to 2.2 million
seniors
• Provided a one-time 25% reduction in minimum Registered
Retirement Income Fund for 2008
• Budget 2007 increased the age limit for maturing pensions and
RRSPs from 69 to 71
• The Tax Fairness Plan introduced pension income splitting for the
2007 and subsequent tax years

and-so-on…

Highlighting of text in the Handbook, for copying, is difficult and very error-prone, so that it will not be easy to pass information on or to extract just desired portions, deleting extraneous information that is of no use other than to promote good feelings about all the good work that was done on behalf of seniors without actually identifying anything of interest to anyone at the moment.

Most likely, if anyone wishes to point out information in the Handbook that may be of interest to others, it may be most efficient to print out a given page and to highlight the information on it that may be of use.

The considerable amount of time I have spent on the Handbook so far has not helped to enable me to determine what sort of information in the Handbook for Seniors can actually be of use to any seniors (except perhaps things like that immersing a burn in cool water is better than to smear butter on it), although there is no doubt in my mind that I have come across a very large amount of information that stresses that having the conservative government around has been the best thing for seniors since sliced bread was invented, which, given how we were taken for a ride by the Liberals, may well be true.

Nevertheless, I have not been able to find anything that helps seniors with escalating prices for gas, food, energy, taxes and rent, but I suppose that as long as any yuppy is willing to pay ten dollars for a liter of water, gasoline at a dollar a liter should be considered a bargain.  That may as well extend to $1.50 a liter for milk and the price we pay for bread.

However, the words gasoline, bread or milk show up not once in the handbook, while energy is being mentioned in passing — in connection with a questionnaire on the benefits of healthy living.  I guess that milk, bread and other foodstuffs are not as important in that respect as feeling energetic is, even though no healthy living is possible without affordable prices for heating one’s home and for the food one needs to keep alive.

I wish I could afford to do so, and if I could, I would offer prizes for the first three seniors who can demonstrate to me that having the Handbook for Seniors around has actually helped them solve a problem.  However, rest assured that if you are a senior, the handbook will be good for you, because on the last of the 68 pages of the document it states:

Final Thoughts

This Handbook for Seniors is meant to provide an overview of local and national topics relevant to seniors and retirees in the constituency of Vegreville - Wainwright.

Although I have not been able to determine anything that is obviously relevant to seniors in the Handbook, upon much further searching I will without a doubt become more enlightened on that apparent omission.  Still, it seems to me that the one obvious advantage that could have been offered by the Handbook, namely being a concise directory of government services for seniors, has been substantially diluted with overwhelming portions of propaganda that account for the vast majority of the information contained in the 68 pages of the document.

Yes, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for seniors to live well or even only in comfort, but having the Handbook for Seniors around will do a lot to make seniors feel good about that.  See, it is only a matter of mind over matter, and it did not take me 68 pages to state that.

–Walter