Has anyone ever looked at their paycheque and said, “I sure wish they’d take more of my money”?
That was the question posed by federal Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose Monday as federal and provincial finance ministers met in Vancouver to discuss proposals to expand the Canada Pension Plan. In the end, they agreed on a sizable expansion of the CPP. Is this what Canadians really want?
I honestly think the answer is yes – at least for the most part.
The main target for a CPP expansion has been a group of middle-income individuals who don’t have workplace pensions. The public pension system will be central to financing their retirement. We know many of them simply fail to save.
CPP offers a commitment device,…
CPP expansion threatens to benefit the tax collector more than the taxpayer - Financial Post Op-Ed
The threat that the roll-out of the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) in 2018 may further fragment Canada’s retirement system has moved Canada Pension Plan (CPP) expansion up the agenda for the June 20 federal-provincial finance ministers’ meeting. Yes, a bigger CPP looks better than the ORPP – but that is not saying much. Perhaps some higher-income Canadians could save more, but lack the foresight or discipline to do it. Even so, they – like so many lower-income earners the ORPP will hurt – might do poorly under an expanded CPP.
Why is that? Recall the standard pitch for an RRSP, or any other retirement saving plan where money going in is not taxed as income, and money coming out is. The idea is that the saver’s tax rate…
Canada’s housing problem is supply, and the solution is local, not federal - Globe and Mail Op-Ed
From the Finance Minister to the Bank of Canada to Canada’s big-bank executives, everyone is talking about surging house prices in Vancouver and Toronto. What can federal policy makers do about it? Unfortunately, not much – because the core problem is a lack of low-cost, single-family homes in those cities, driven in part by local and provincial government policies.
What are the facts? Nationally, house prices have increased by 67 per cent since 1990 and by 19 per cent since 2006. However, interest rates have decreased during this period. The conventional five-year mortgage rate fell from nearly 13 per cent in 1990 to 7 per cent in 2006 and is now below 4 per cent. This has left the average consumer with…
