Where did you say my pension went?

i beleive when you work at a company for years then they go bankrupt. they should still pay the pension/s that we worked for. it is not the fault of the workers that managemt scrwed up (ceo). it seems that the ceo/s get big bonas for what we worked hard to make the company not them.
i hope the goverment has the balls and listen/s to the people like nortel @etc pass the bill that will help us keep our pension. i worked for nortel 35years and i think myself and all my fellow workers deserve to keep our pension.

As long as MP's, MPP's and all gov't employees have their taxpayer backed pensions, indexed to the cost of living, to hell with the rest of us poor stiffs who fund those wonderful gov't pensions with our tax dollars.
Any pension plan available to gov't workers should be available to all taxpayers, no exceptions. How dare our elected officials give themselves full pensions after 6 years of service. I have worked for 40 years and won't get anything close to those great gov't pensions.
CEO's and pension managers should be held responsible under new pension reform laws and jailed if the pension funds are depleted. That will stop this nonsense.

Ninety nine percent of the of those persons who sold everyone on investing in a pension knew that they were lying and anyone with a 2nd grade education can see a scam - just like the kid who gets the toy truck taken away and given a piece of cardboard of a picture of a very badly drawn truck to play with instead -- well, that is the public at large. Anyone who paid attention to math in school and even without polynomials - could easily figure out the numbers. Even discounting the money the thieves running the companies taking their million$ (billions sometimes) -- the banks never intended to create enough cash to cover the cost of even the complete amount it takes to raise a child born let alone the birth of a baby in advanced countries that think they should have a house, 2 cars, motorcycles, desert toys, new clothes, fancy foods and all the rest that goes along with living in an advanced country like in Europe, United States, North America and many other fancy countries. How any person on the earth under the sun got the fantasy in their head that if they give a dollar to a company and expect that company to multiply it by 300,000, take 2/3 of it for cost and then have 1.5 million left to pay a person their pension -- has me baffled. I was once worked that industry - and those fake computer printouts are just that -- "Fake". In the beginning vested people got their pensions - because they were at the top of the pyramid -- and now that lower layers are getting old and expect a retirement - well, the world has already had done its monetary meltdown to cover over the outright theft. What are you going to do? You're not going to do anything because you aren't intelligent enough to register what's been done to you and too old to get too tough with the banksters and insurers or you will get beat up. Period!

Government wont lose their pensions, upper management in large companies should be able to manage with million dollar bonuses...that leaves the rest of us. We dont matter. We are nothing
more than a labor force to be rented out. The government takes half and does nothing to protect us.
it is just a different spin on the ole "landlord and peasant" There were a few rich landlords and a lot of poor peasants....not much has changed.

First of all, shame on Gordon Powers for not expanding on the "DB" and "DC" abbreviations. He sort of explained them, but I still have no idea what the letters stand for.

Secondly, I happen to agree with Adrian. I too have worked my tail off for 30 years, never taken one cent of EI, and if I hadn't maxed out my RRSPs I would have zero to look forward to (beside good old CPP which isn't very much at all).

What would make me even more angry is if new pension laws are established and those of us with nothing are not grandfathered. The same way I missed paternity leave, new home ownership loans from RRSPs, and several other benefits for others that my tax dollars paid for.

I'm getting a little tired of the beating government workers are taking. I happen to be one and after 15 years of service and contributing almost $6,000.00 a year to my pension plan I will get approximately $18,000.00 a year in pension. Not exactly living high off the hog now is it? Granted I will get cost of living increases each year but so do people on CPP. Learn a little before you knock all government workers will you?

...and I agree with the govtworker -- who work their tails off protecting the corporations such as the Canadian Governments and it's rulers, banksters and insurers that are the ones responsible for the protectionist corporation theft - for their measly bit of retirements or pensions (whichever) who are not none the smarter than the non-government population -- quit beating on them. At least they were smart enough to get a real plantation owner to work for that would at least feed them scraps from the table.

You are right...there is a large distinction between the frontline government worker and the elected offical who gets a large pension after several years service. My apologies to those who took offense but the one thing that does remain true is that it is very unlikely they will loose their pittance. The government should protect us all as well as they protect government workers as we all work for the government dont we?

govtworker should do the math. $6,000 per year for 15 years equates to a total contribution of $90,000. This gets govtworker a pension of $18,000 a year. Lets assume retirmement at 55, typical for government workers, and a life span of another 30 years. Not let see what happens, why it is a lifetime indexed annuity totally $540,000 ($18,000@30). Not bad for a $90,000 investment.

Now consider poor private sector worker who contributes to RRSP. Not likely to retire at 55. Nope, will be working until 65 to try and accumulate some cash for retirement, and of course to fund govtworker's pension. Assume, manages to save up $90,000, same as govtworker contribution. How far will that get private sector worker with same withdrawal of $18,000 per year. Why it is a grand total of 5 years ($90,000/$18,000).

There is going to be an uproar in this country over disparites like this.

The time has come to do something about the abuse workers/employees are receiving from employers when it comes to managing a pension plan on behalf of the employee. Ottawa has to act swiftly to counter the culture held by employers today......... lets rent an employee, run him into the ground through overwork, and if he remains with the Company when he turns 45, he is obviously stupid, so get rid of him. By doing so, Company pension plan contributions, if they are not being used to run the Company, now revert back to the Company. "Sorry about that, nothing personal, this is a business decision. Your pension plan no longer exists.", says the hatchet man.

There are two ways to counter this blatant abuse and flagrant misappropriation of the pension fund payments; they are 1) charge all employers with fraud, put them on trial and if they do not lie enough to be believed, incarcerate them. Regrettably, Ottawa does not have the balls to stand up to the employers particularly the outside of Canada type. So this will not happen.
2) enact legislation forcing employers to pay the pension plan payments to Ottawa just as personal taxes, and EI payments are deducted and contributed today. This will force the Company to keep its commitments to the employee, regardless whether they remain with the Company until retirement or are axed. In doing so, the employers' will be forced to control the bottom line in other ways.

Is this too much to ask? Probably. Our law makers have their pensions guaranteed and are fat cats.

Does this mean, I, an employee having worked over 40 years for various Companies only to witness a takeover or an acquisition by an outside company, and has no company pension at all, does this mean I am SOL? Afraid so.

I worked for a Tembec Pulp Mill in Marathon , Ontario that went bankrupt about a year ago. We had a DB plan that was severely underfunded and we paid the premiums out of our wages . When our company went under most of those who were already collecting benefits lost about 40% of their monthly income.
For the rest of us, we will have to let a court decide if there will be any money left for us at retirement time. Many of the workers who wanted to retire were forced to leave and work elsewhere and to this point have no idea about if or when they will be able to collect a pension that they have worked a lifetime to acquire.
This is just not right.

I'd like to point out although I, like most gov't employees, will receive a pension when I retire..most likely at 60... that pension will become limited to the amount that CPP will pay out to me once I turn 65... maybe a small amount more but not much if at all. So the government does provide the same pension protection to regular taxpayers as it does to gov't employees... and heres the kicker.. i contribute to both pension plans though I will only recieve the benefit of my gov't plan for those 5 years. So you think 'real world' that the majority of gov't workers have nothing to complain about? Most of us pay twice the amount towards an old age pension for no real benefit unless we retire at 40, but who can really do that on a pension? The MPs, just like private sector CEOs might have it good, but the rest of us dont get it quite as well as you think.

I don't understand why everyone is wanting to depend on the canada pension plan and RRSP's that the bank manages to provide for them in the future. The smart thing to do would be to take a course on how to manage your own money. Not on how to give your money to the bank to manage. Thats like saying lets give our kids to the first random person on the street to take care of them and then hope that they turn out okay.

I started manage my own finances after I took a course from Metro Trading School (www.metrotrade.ca) and now I produced about 50% a year on my accounts.

Stop being dependent and start being independent

Nameless government employee .... I guess you don't work in finance.

As with most pension plans in the country, yours is designed to work with the CPP. Your contribution to your pension plan is lower on that portion of your salary covered by CPP. As a result, when you turn 65 (or when you begin receiving a CPP disability pension) your pension is reduced by an amount similar to the pension you’ll receive from CPP. If you don’t take your CPP pension early, the pension you receive before age 65 should be about the same as your combined pension and unreduced CPP pension after age 65.

I am also a government working who is quite frankly tired of being harrassed and abused and slandered based on heresay, overindulged opinions, and little to no evidence to ever back up these opinions. Its like everyone always defaults to the same old story about how some official in Ottawa makes a sizable pension after 5 years of service in parliament and now every single civil servant is a dartboard for "the everyman" to shame us for not working hard enough and living the high life on taxpayer dollars. That is SO incredibly misrepresentative of the vast majority of civil servants. We actually get paid on the lower end of the scale compared to our private sector professional counterparts, and we contribute about 8% of our annual salary to our pension plan which isn't lavish by any stretch of the imagination.

Besides, what do you propose - that the pension system doesn't work? That pensions shouldn't be accessible to all Canadians, and no such support system for retired workers should be available and we should just depend on our own income or go on welfare if we have spent away our savings? I for one feel the government often leads the way in good labour practices and fair and equitable standards of living. If we are not advocating for this system or setting an example for private sector and other companies of the benefits and necessity of a solid pension plan, then who is?

And if you wish to continue to bash public servants for their supposedly undeserved pensions and love to cite the very rare occasion of the overpaid official, then I ask that you consider just who you are attacking. The police offficers who come to your door if you've been robbed or attacked, nurses who care for us, doctors who treat our health conditions, firefighters who save our lives, teachers who teach our children, scientists and researchers who find cures for illnesses and better ways to live, social workers who help our families in need, engineers who build our roads, the list goes on and on. And yes, even the often attacked "paper pushers" as many love to call them - who work to make sure we have proper identification, health cards, licences for our vehicles, building permits, etc etc.

It is hurtful and propagates a really negative stereotype about the people who try and help those in need in our society. At the very least if you feel the need to lash out at civil servants for whatever reason, please at least TRY and find some evidence for your claims. I would encourage you to take the time to do your research.

As a younger government worker who is thankful to have the job, I will have to put in 35 years of contributing 8 percent of my salary, plus CPP before I can think about retiring. I'm not complaining by any means, that's fair.
However my wife who works in the private sector takes home 14% more of her paycheque than I do thanks to the neverending deductions that come with working for any level of government.
Am I happy to hopefully have a pension down the road, of course... But I'll sure pay for it by the time it happens, it wasn't some free gift where money will just be thrown by the bucketload at me for nothing.
Instead of knocking public service pensions to the lowest common denominator why aren't we all upset that private sector plans have taken such a beating recently? Where are the crooks who have taken everyones invested money and ran? How can Goldman-Sachs say 'they weren't required to actually sell quality paper to customers' and 'it's the customers responsibility to make sure we don't sell them junk'. And these investment firms actually want to be able to continue to conduct business as usual after this fiasco.
Lets lay the blame where the blame is due!

Mr. "Stop Bashing Govt Employees". That was extremely well articulated. I'm terribly afraid that our average Canadian is not intelligent or insightful enough to assess the overall situation as deeply and with as much forethought as you do.

Unfortunately, misery loves company. These people just want to ensure that all boats around them sink along with them rather than to try to fix the pension problem in this country. It is not the civil servants' fault that these unfortunate circumstances occured. Typically Canadian way of quickly turning on their brethren. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Turning on civil servants like rabid dogs (which you all are) is certainly not happening in the U.S. (which is bearing the brunt of this economic meltdown) because they're intelligent enough to direct their anger towards those who deserve it...the private sector who improperly invested the funds in your defined pension plans.

Smarten up people!!! Lobby your MPs for an improved national pension plan rather than trying your hardest to take down someone because they've been a little more fortunate. Most public servants work hard, pay just as much tax as you do and they make hefty contributions to their pension plan. In addition, their RRSP room is grossly reduced by these pension contributions and they receive virtually no CPP at 65 even though they have contributed to it every single day of their working career.

How is it in Godsname possible that this happend in the "best" country of the world in where everybody is happy to be a proud Canadian. In my opiny You must feel ashamed to feel this way in a country with foodbanks and allmost 4 milion people living under the povertyline! Where are no laws, only rules and rules which are differend in every province! ( Abouth Discrimination!)

THE PLAN TO BANKRUPT NORTEL WAS DEVISED MANY YEARS AGO !
THE UPPER MANAGEMENT COMPRISED OF AN ELITE GROUP OF MEN, A SUBGROUP OF ANOTHER WORDWIDE ORGANIZATION WHOSE PLAN IT IS TO FORM A " ONE WORLD ORGANIZATION "
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS " THE NEW WORLD ORDER" ! GO A HEAD , CALL ME CRAZY !
THE STOCK SWINDLE WAS THE EARLY SIGN OF THINGS TO COME . THIS AFTER OUR MUCH REVERED CEO FROM DOWN SOUTH ( YOU ALL ) ALONG WITH HIS LOVELY WIFE , WERE ARRESTED AND CHARGED WITH STOCK FRAUD AND MANIPULATION . THIS STORY AND MANY LIKE IT WERE DROPPED QUICKLY FROM THE MEDIA BY " THE POWERS THAT WERE " TO AVOID THEIR CONTAMIATION OF THE EVIDENCE .
THOUSAND OF SHAREHOLDERS , INCLUDING MYSELF LOST MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AS THE RESULT OF THE FRAUD THAT WAS DISCOVERED IN NT FINANCIAL MISSMANAGEMENT AND MANIPULATION OF PROFIT ACOUNTABILITY .
THE COMPANT ( NT) HELD ON TEMPORARILY WHILE THE " SHARKS " DEVISED THEIR PLANS TO GUT THE COMPANY BY MEANS OF ILLICIT "BONUSES " MAKING THEMSELVES WEALTHY , NOT ONLY RICH , BEYOND AN AVERAGE MANS DREAMS .
THEN ONCE ALL WAS REMOVED WITHIN LEGAL LIMITS , LO AND BEHOLD " THEY DECLARED BANKUPTCY"
LEAVING THE CUPBOARD BARE .I REMEMBER THE LOGO THEY USED AND REVERED WHEN I WORKED IN THE BRAMALEA PLANT " OUR PEOPLE ARE OUR STRENGTH " . YES WE WERE ! WE AS WORKERS MADE THEM THE MONEY THEY STOLE FROM US . WE TRUSTED THEM AND DID OUR BEST TO MAKE THEM " NUMBER ONE " WHICH THEY NEVER ACHIEVED ( TOO BAD ) .
THEIR CRIME IS NOT HE FAULT OF OUR GOVERNMENT . THAT CRIME BEING THE DEFAULTING IN CONTINUING OUR PENSION PLAN PAYMENTS , OUR HEALTH CARE CLAIMS , OUR LIFE INSURANCE CLAIMS , NOT TO MENTION THOSE MANY MANY WORKERS WHO WERE LET GO WITHOUT A CENT OF SEVERANCE OR ANY HOPE OF PENSION OR FURTHER BENIFITS WHICH THEY WERE PROMISED WHN THEY JOINED THE COMPANY .
WAS THE JUDGMENT MADE RECENTLY BY OUR FAIR AND HONEST JUDICIAL SYSTEM , THE RESULT OF MORE OF THE SAME THAT LED TO THE RAPE AND FRAUD OF NT?
THIS IS FAR FROM FINISHED . JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL .
WILL THE " Mc GINTY GOVERNMENT HELP US OUT AS THEY DID THE AUTOWORKERS . LOOK AT THE TAX YOU WILL REAP AS THE RESULT . THINK ABOUT IT OR WIL WE SEE MANY THOUSANDS OF EX NT WORKERS DECLARE BANKRUPTCY OR GO ON WELFARE ?

It may come as a shock to those of you with limited memories, but way way back in the days of Paul Martin balancing the budget, he managed that by taking the money from the gov't workers pension plans and putting it into general revenue to spend. Eh voila, no more deficit.

The Public Service Alliance, RCMP, and Military all had their pension funds stolen by the gov't of the day. We filed lawsuits that languished in obscurity for eons. What we now have is an unfunded liability for all taxpayers to cough up instead of a fully funded pension plan. Our payments go to general revenue. Now the Treasury board is talking pension rollbacks as part of our next contract.

Yes it rocks to be a public servant. It is quite common now to see my coworkers continue on into their late 60's and early 70's, basically skipping retirement as they can't afford it.