- Target:
- CAW LGBT
- Region:
- Canada
- Website:
- www.canadianlabour.ca
Economists, academics, and 76% of all Canadians in a recent poll support expanding the CPP. So do eight of ten provinces. The only ones standing in our way are Alberta, Quebec and the federal government who would rather create a different savings plan - one where you take on all the risk, your employer doesn't have to contribute a dime, and banks and insurance companies get to administer - for a fee.
Why give more of your hard earned savings to them when expanding the CPP is a better deal for you, and a better deal for your children when they're ready to retire?
Currently workers and employers pay 4.95% of salary into the CPP (up to a current “Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings” limit of $47,200 per year).
Labour's plan to double future CPP benefits can be paid for by increasing what workers currently save through CPP contributions by 0.43% of pensionable earnings each year for 7 years.
These increased contributions would effectively double the average earnings replaced by CPP pension benefits, to a maximum (in 2010 dollars) of $1,868 per month
Many Canadians continue to suffer from the recent global economic crisis, including losing their retirement savings and pension security.
In the midst of this economic meltdown, misinformation is being spread about the pension crisis, and there are attempts by corporate interests to eliminate defined benefit pension plans in Canada. Currently, their favoured targets are the pension plans of federal public-sector workers.
If there’s anything we should have learned from the recent economic crisis, it is that market-based defined contribution pension plans (such as RRSPs) have failed to provide the needed retirement security for many Canadians. On the other hand, defined benefit plans are better for the economy as a whole and have proven that they are generally able to withstand economic downturns and recessions.
We are against using federal public sector workers as scapegoats and attacking their defined benefit pension plans. We are against pushing everyone’s welfare down to the lowest common denominator rather than protecting the pension plans that work and improving retirement security for all.
We, therefore, urge you to:
1. Introduce concrete measures to safeguard federal public service pension plans.
2. Introduce concrete measures to safeguard all defined benefit pension plans.
3. Improve retirement security for everyone by doubling Quebec-Canada Pension Plan benefits and immediately increasing Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement for all retirees.
You can further help this campaign by sponsoring it
The PETITION TO PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER ON RETIREMENT SECURITY petition to CAW LGBT was written by Tom Balint and is in the category Government at GoPetition.