The Justin Trudeau government has declared a pension crisis, and is imposing its solution.
After the Ontario government threatened to press ahead with its own Quebec-style provincial pension plan, the Ottawa head office of the Liberal Party stepped in. Finance Minister Bill Morneau called a meeting of provincial ministers in June, and they lined up to support his intention to expand the Canada Pension Plan in 2019.
Perhaps still haunted by the leap to the harmonized sales tax, B.C. Finance Minister Mike de Jong broke from the herd ever so slightly, declaring a consultation period first. Premier Christy Clark hinted that this was a formality, since she is focused on cordial relations with Ottawa. B.C.’s rubber stamp could come any day.
Morneau’s CPP expansion plan sounds quite modest. Employer and employee payroll contributions are to go up from the current 4.95 per cent of earnings to 5.95 per cent by 2023. For each employee earning $54,900, the employer contribution goes up $7 to $8 per month in each of the first five years of the phase-in.
The goal is that by 2025, CPP will cover a third of earnings rather than a quarter as it does today.
Morneau is concerned about the decline in private pension plans, and sees it as the state’s job to step in. The days of bond investments earning seven per cent interest are gone, and even public sector employers are starting to look at defined-contribution pension plans where the payout depends on investment returns.
For private sector employees, defined-benefit pensions are mostly a distant memory, if they have an employer pension at all. Many join self-employed people who are expected to manage their own RRSPs and tax-free savings accounts, which were curtailed by the incoming Trudeau government.
The Liberal philosophy is to discourage individual responsibility and increase state control.
If you’re a small business owner, you’re looking at an extra $40 a month for each employee for CPP.
The Fraser Institute ran the numbers on CPP deductions compared to Morneau’s middle class tax cut. When the CPP expansion is done, that $54,900-a-year employee will see a net decrease of $374 in take-home pay.
Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press. E-mail tfletcher@nanaimobulletin.com.