Federal Employee Pension Reforms: First Steps - on a Much Longer Journey

William Robson and Alexandre Laurin
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Alexandre Laurin: C.D. Howe Institute

No 140, e-briefs from C.D. Howe Institute

Abstract: While Ottawa's proposed reforms to the pension plans of federal employees and MPs are a move in the right direction, the deep flaws in these plans require more fundamental revisions. The authors argue argue that more sweeping reforms are needed to achieve better funding and a more reasonable division of obligations and risks between taxpayers and public servants. The guaranteed incomes those plans promise participants are far more valuable, and their costs and obligations on taxpayers are far larger, than reported. Currently before Parliament, the new provisions include increasing employee contributions to the plans and raising eligibility ages for new employees' benefits. But the flaws in Ottawa's employee pension plans are so serious that these steps should - and almost certainly will - not be the end of the journey.

Keywords: Pension Policy; Governance and Public Institutions; Canada; pension plan reforms; Public Service (PS) pension plan; MPs' pension plan (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H55 J32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 7 pages
Date: 2012-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Published on the C.D. Howe Institute website, November 2012

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