Labour groups want CPP expansion, reform

DAWSON CITY - Western labour leaders want the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) expanded.

DAWSON CITY - Western labour leaders want the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) expanded.

The Yukon Order of Pioneers Hall was the setting for a meeting of the presidents of most of the western and northern federations of labour, a parallel meeting to the Western and Northern Premiers meeting in Dawson this week.

Alex Furlong, the president of the Yukon Federation of Labour, was joined at a press conference by Mary Lou Cherwaty (N.W.T.), Gil McGowan (Alberta), Larry Hubich (Saskatchewan) and Darlene Dziewit (Manitoba).

Furlong said this group tries to get together whenever the premiers do to bring attention to matters they believe should be on the political agenda.

Discussions focused on pensions, employment insurance, the economy and jobs.

McGowan tackled pensions.

“The bottom line ... is that the vast majority of Canadians are not prepared for their retirement and that the collapse of the global equity markets and the result that that’s had on individual savings and also pension plans has exposed a painful truth, which we in the labour movement have known for a long time.

“Our patchwork system of retirement savings is completely inadequate to the task of preparing Canadians for their retirement.”

McGowan said no combination of RRSP plans or private plans can hope to do that task. Any citizen who is not part of a job-related pension plan will probably fall short of the 70 per cent of pre-retirement income they need to live comfortably when they stop working.

The answer to that problem already exists in the form of the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Supplement plan, but both of these programs will need to be enhanced to meet this reality.

Since only about 33 per cent of Canada’s workforce is covered by workplace pension plans, the need for reform is critical, said McGowan.

“The vast majority of Canadians ... don’t have any coverage,” McGowan said.

The federation members are aware that Alberta and B.C. have come to this Premiers’ Conference proposing what it being called an ABC plan. This, said McGowan, is insufficient since it is a voluntary program as far as business is concerned.

“It would not require all employers to match contributions made by individual employees.

“We’re concerned that the premiers of Alberta and B.C. will use this conference as a platform to promote the supplementary plan not only as a solution for Alberta and B.C., but as a solution for the country, in a similar way that they used a previous Western Premiers’ Conference to advocate for TILMA and encourage other provinces to adopt it.”

The federations are calling for a national pension summit, involving more than just politicians, to perform major surgery on the pension situation rather than just applying a Band-Aid solution.

“What we need to do is expand the CPP as the only vehicle that covers all Canadians and make it provide a level of retirement income that allows Canadians to keep themselves out of poverty.”

Hubich enlarged on the failure of the supplementary Saskatchewan Pension Plan, which he maintains has failed for exactly the same reasons the ABC plan will not work.

Introduced 23 years ago by the Saskatchewan government, a healthy return on the required investment by a worker would only have provided them with $55,000 after nearly a quarter-century in the plan.

“You’re not going to buy anything in today’s economy with $55,000 in the bank,” he said.

“The last thing we need in this country,” said Dziewit, “is several more layers of bureaucracy for a patchwork system that doesn’t work. We’ve had that. We have a delivery system which, if enhanced, could give people a comfortable pension plan.

“That’s why we need a pan-Canadian pension summit, We don’t profess to have all the answers here, but we’d like to hear from all the stakeholders - from labour ... from seniors ... from government ... from people who are experts in pensions. We’d like to hear how the plan can be expanded to work.”