Posts Tagged ‘pensions’

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Everything you need to know about the parties’ platforms, from taxes and terrorism to the environment

Monday, August 3rd, 2015

Here’s your guide to the four main parties’ record and pledges as the campaign begins: Economy, Taxes And Pocketbook Issues / Security And Terrorism: / Energy And Environment / Infrastructure And Transport / Foreign Affairs And Defence / Social Issues / Democratic Reform And Governance / Justice / Aboriginal Issues

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Posted in Governance Debates | 1 Comment »


Stephen Harper’s anti-pension obsession hits Ontarians

Saturday, July 18th, 2015

Astonishingly, the Harper government will refuse to collect pension deductions on Ontario’s behalf or provide any information to assist the plan — services for which it would have been fairly compensated by the province… The result of the PM’s partisan tantrum? Higher accounting and compliance costs for business, and additional government funding made necessary by the same federal Tories who always claim to be reducing red tape and cutting waste.

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Posted in Social Security Policy Context | 2 Comments »


OAS must be increased

Tuesday, July 7th, 2015

Between 2007 and 2010, as poverty rates were falling in many OECD countries… in Canada they actually rose about two percentage points. Statistics Canada reported in December 2014 that 600,000 seniors live in poverty, including more than one in four singles. A senior who receives the maximum permitted for the CPP (Canada Pension Plan), OAS (old age security) and GIS (guaranteed income supplement) lives below the poverty line, yet the federal government won’t place on its agenda an increase to OAS. For shame.

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Government spending can’t solve Canada’s demographic problems

Friday, June 12th, 2015

If Canada’s retirees cannot make a reasonable return on their assets… More of them will be dependent on old-age security (OAS) and the guaranteed income supplement (GIS)… inflated asset prices (equities, housing and the like) have especially benefited the wealthy, thus contributing to rising inequality that, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and others, further impedes economic growth.

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Millions of Canadians risk losing ‘retirement of their dreams,’ study warns

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2015

The deputy chief economist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce is making an impassioned plea to reform the country’s retirement system as quickly as possible… Canadians simply aren’t saving enough. So “we have to be more creative” to encourage savings, whether via CPP, RRSPs or other ways. “Without getting into the politics of it, it is important to remember why a change to the system is essential,”

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Why CPP has become an election issue

Friday, May 29th, 2015

According to a Nanos poll for The Globe and Mail, expansion of CPP benefits was the most popular of four policy initiatives posed… Low-earning workers are covered adequately by other public pension programs, and wealthy individuals can manage for themselves. Thus, retirement income security is the ultimate “middle-class” policy issue – something that no political party can afford to ignore in a competitive electoral setting.

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Whether voluntary or mandatory, there is no need to expand the CPP

Thursday, May 28th, 2015

… so far as we are talking about assuring that those of modest means save enough to replace their incomes in retirement — on the parallel theory that we would not leave them to live in near poverty if they did not — well, that’s covered by the existing CPP… virtually everyone — in excess of 95 per cent — among the bottom two fifths on the income scale is currently saving at a sufficient level to replace at least 50 per cent of their income in retirement, the recommended minimum.

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Reframe Canada’s social safety net as its social architecture so we can rebuild it before it crumbles: report

Wednesday, May 13th, 2015

A demographic storm has ripped through social architecture: in 1980, there were 14 seniors for every 100 workers, in 2013 there were 22 for every hundred. By 2056, the report says there could be 50 seniors for every 100 workers. Add in a debt-hobbled, over-educated generation in precarious work, fewer and fewer defined retirement benefits and more new Canadians… if we don’t fix the broken windows and leaky roofs now, he said “we’re likely to see increasing poverty and inequality, we could see a less productive economy

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Reforming Retirement (5): Don’t cut OAS. Cut the need for it

Friday, March 13th, 2015

The federal government’s long-term plan to address rising OAS costs – which are a real threat – may end up reintroducing elder poverty to a country that had nearly done away with it. There is a better way. If more middle- and lower-income Canadians had better pensions, they would not be so reliant on taxpayer-supported OAS. The best way to make that happen is through CPP expansion.

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We can’t afford a postinstitutional society

Thursday, March 12th, 2015

Institutions matter. One of the markers of advanced industrial societies is their rich network of institutions that support good governance, ensure security, provide needed social services and foster educated work forces. There is a continuing debate in the developing world about whether strong institutions are needed for economic growth or whether they result from the achievement of a certain income level. What is not in dispute is that successful societies thrive with strong institutions and decay without them.

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