Attack on pension plans coming to Canada?

Well if this government of ours cuts back pensions of its seniors it is time they all debell and stand up to our up and coming communist government. All seniors need to protest like this country has never seen. The seniors of this country have worked very hard over the years to get these pensions, which they deserve. Hey rather than give immigrants that just moved here pensions, cut them off and send them home. Hey this government wants to cut the length of time they have to be in this country from 10 years to 3 years, so they can collect our hard earned pensions. Screw that SENIORS stand up this time and be HEARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Pretty soon the immigrants will be running this fine country of Canada...

I wonder, these legislators........any cutbacks to their future pension plans? Canadians need to fight this one big time..........Lets make Parliament work!

Everyone deserves a decent pension - provided the government or emplooyer can afford it. Politicians have padded their poockets and pensions as well as pensions for civil servants. Corporate executives have certainly filled their pockets with shameful salaries, bonuses and golden handshakes. I agree that immigrants should have to contribute for more than three years before being elligible for pension benefits - 20 to 25 years would be more realistic. Or, make it on a graduated scale similar to CPP. The proposal is a political ploy to garner votes and the politician who introduced the proposal should be ousted.
There is no problem adjusting pensions as long as the biggest cuts are made to those earning the highest pensions/incomes.
It is time to unite and speak with one voice!

Strange. Wasn't it just a few years ago that a certain finance minister had accumulated a billion or so as a surplus to deal with these things? Then, another government just spent it all away? After all, there's always more where that came from, right? Bad times NEVER happen...

But until the people that make these decisions are made accountable, the problem will never get fixed.

First off, Brian above, this crazy comment about immigrants is just absolute ignorant. Please inform yourself before making such embarrassing comments that clearly taint good Canadians.
Everyone is this country except our native people has been at one time an immigrant. Canada pensions are collected in this country from amounts deducted from your paycheque in essence.
In other words, if you have not worked and deducted CPP, you will have NO CPP pension to collect.
So these immigrants that you claim should go back to where they came from, not only help fill up the CPP coffers for, lets say your parents to collect, but for their futures as well.
Oh how lucky we would all be if we were all employed by our wonderful government and were entiled to GREAT pensions at retirement.
Save for your future, if you think CPP will see you through, unfortunately you will be sadly mistaken.

Am I missing here something ? According to this news item " At issue is whether commitments made to RETIRED PUBLIC SERVANTS by government pension funds can be scaled back in dire economic times. In other words if you and I are effected in dire economic times why should public servants be immune ? After all their pension, their benefits, wages were all extorted by their unions, forgetting that all those wages, benefits, pensions will be paid by people making far less money they do.
The Greek public servants went on strike last month because their government could no longer afford them to retire at age 55. By the way 60% + of the workers in Greece are public servants, the other 40 % pays no taxes, so the pensions the greek public servants receive is paid for by the germans who retire at age 67.
As for that cewrtain finance minister who managed to accumulate a billion or so surplus, he did it by reducing transfers to the provinces at a time when the WORLD was not in the same financial mess we are today.

Mia, don't throw stones if you live in a glass house. I believe Brian's comment was about immigrants who collect a Canadian pension without contributing money. Pensions like OAS and that sort not CPP!
And how many generations does a person's family need to live in North America not to be an immigrant or from an immigrant family? Your comment is tired and old that everyone was an immigrant at some point.

It is you that needs to check your facts Mia. EVERYONE in Canada is an immigrant. The First Nations people are immigrants every bit as much as my mother. They simply arrived here before she did.

As for the tired bit about saving for the future - stuff it. Most people simply can't save enough.

And if you think its OK for the government to break the faith about their commitments to previous generations - what do you think they will do to you? If you don't stand when they come for someone else, don't be surprised when there is no one to stand for you when your turn comes.

Retirement income security has had a great deal of attention lately. But, protection of pensions when a sponsor company goes bankrupt, is being slapped down by our Conservative Govt. This in spite of the fact that all opposition parties have given Bill C-501 unanimous support while the tories voted against it !
Bill C-501 would give pensions preferred status ( over junk bond dealers ).
A case in point is Nortel whose pensioners are facing a 30% reduction in income while junk bond dealers will be raking in a handsome return.
Also Bill C-501 would bring Canadian law into line with all other G8 countries where pensions are either protected, guaranteed or at least give preferred status.

I think the first comment is not about collecting the CPP after only being in the country for 3 years. He means that there is a bill proposed in government to have immigrants who come into this country who are elderly to collect old age pension only after being here for 3 years rather than 10 years. If the government is concerned that one third of the retirees will not have enough money to retire I find this proposal obsurd if they do not have enough money now and are talking about taking money away from people who have paid into our pension plans and have paid taxes in this country for the past 40 years. To cut pensions to people who have paid all their life into CPP is obviously not right and Canadians should start standing up for their rights.

Really Mia,

Everyone in this country except natives is an immigrant? I don't know about you but I was born and raised here to a family that has been in Canada for generations. My great grandfather fought in the 1st world war and my grandfather gave his life for this country in the second world war so while you might be a 'immigrant' I certainly am not. And if you want to play that card even the natives are 'immigrants' who came across the land bridge from Asia if you go back far enough.

As for pensions, this is a rich country but unfortunately the greed of corporations and thier profit margins is putting a squeeze on pensions across Canada. The majority of Canadians are passive so companies think they can get away with reneging on the agreements they made to the very workers who made those companies what they are today. It's no secret that big business runs the western world and corporations would proceed unchecked by the government of this and every other country if not for the government fear of being voted out of office. Because of that the government has to make an attempt to at least appear to stand up for the citizens.

Canada and the USA were founded on the principle of democracy, but were not founded on the principal of capitalism. Over the years people have been lulled into a false realism that democracy and capitalism basically are the same thing but that is not the case. Now we are seeing the fruits of capitalism gone wild bear in corporations and companies where greed and the ability to bend the law are the rule of the day. There is no regard for thier current and former employees, they are just numbers that can be adjusted and squeezed out to make the shareholders and company executives higher and higher profits. Pensions are just another liability to the bottom line that will be squeezed out unless people stand up for themselves.

The seniors in canada DESERVE thier pensions , afterall they , in thier younger working years have put billions of dollars into the canadian economy over time,,
we need to scale back the civil servants pensions , as they dont need the huge pension plans that they have after only a few years in office.
The goverent seems to forget , that its the working people of this land that has built this country to the statas that it now holds in the world ,,
goverment!!!! dont be cheap , we earnt our pensions

Well if this government of ours cuts back pensions of its seniors it is time they all rebell and stand up to our up and coming communist government. All seniors need to protest like this country has never seen. The seniors of this country have worked very hard over the years to get these pensions, which they deserve. Hey rather than give refugees that just moved here pensions, cut them off and send them to NWT 1000km away from populated area. Hey this government wants to cut the length of time they have to be in this country from 10 years to 3 years, so they can collect our hard earned pensions. So that SENIORS stand up this time and be HEARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! The refugees are
running this fine country of Canada...

What has the government done with our money? Every person who works in Canada contributes to CPP. So where is it? Why the cut backs? We deserve our pension, we paid into it. Is it our pension that is paying the politicans their paycheques? No wonder they are so well off. There is no race, nationality, or color that is a true Canadian (by law). But if you were born here then you are a Canadian. There is no real 1st people, 2nd people or last people. Canada government screwed up by opening there boarder to ANYONE, now look at the problem. I want my pension and I will fight for it. The government cannot have it.

J.Bates makes some good points.However, the issue is not about cutbacks to CPP, which everyone who works contributes to, but to Civil Servant Pensions, which Civil Servants contribute to through their paycheques through agreements (contracts) made with their representative Unions. Since the agreements were in place before the current Retired Civil Servants were retired , and is based on their contributions to their Plans, which they have faithfully made over their working years, then there should be no changes made to their prior contract. However this does not mean that the agreements could not be changed on a Go Forward basis. We all know that changing a previous contract that has been faithfully completed by both parties constitutes both a breach of trust and contract.

Eh, I've worked in gov't jobs. They get paid so much money with so many benefits that most people outside the gov't don't get. It's time they relinquished some of their pay if they want pension to stay.

This is 2010 decade of decilne, stop woofing it down like it's 1980 .

Our pensions are already under attack. The current government needs to be defeated as they failed to support Bill C-501 and the loss of the long form census form reduces the ability of the government to properly assess how much funding is required for CPP in the future. Is this one of the secret agendas that the current government has; to say in the future, we cannot fund the CPP at current levels and will have to reduce payment levels?

I am surprised that there has been no mention of the fact that federal public servants pay an extra 1% of their salaries over and above their regular pension contributions to cover cost-of-living increases. Is the government planning to refund that 1% of earnings over a pensioner's career if the cost-of-living increases were to be cancelled?

Hi everyone! Does everyone realize this article is based on what someone PREDICTS. This is NOT a factual article, but only someone saying they THINK it will happen. (Personally, I THINK it will NOT happen.) I believe Jason is having fun again getting everyone upset.
To "old and bitter"...my question to you is...Why do we need the long form? Stephen Harper is doing his best to cut back on fnancial waste in this country, so that Canadians can indeed have a decent "standard of living" again. The liberals blew this by putting us into a mountain of debt.
Secondly, how is the "long form" going to help anyone "assess" the CPP? You pay into the CPP...do you not? What the heck does the CPP have to do with the "long form" at all?? I don't get where you are coming from at all.
If you want to go BACK into a mountain of debt and MORE taxes yet...vote liberal one more time. (That's what we need. Some sarcasm there.)

I am very concerned about some of the comments on here that point to immigrants as part of this problem. The problem runs far deeper than a few immigrants collecting pension but of course they are a vulnerable group so they act as a convenient scapegoat. Really I think people are pointing to this group because it re-enforces their already existing racist/bigot views and they believe gives them ammo to their cause. By the way before anyone questions my back ground or history, I am a white Canadian from 5 generations here. Not that that should matter but many people on here are very narrow minded and might think I am saving this because I am an immigrant or not white. Pathetic. The other thing that people are incorrectly saying is that refugees and immigrants are the same thing. I think if you do not know the difference then you should not post on here until you have researched this and others reading their comments should disregard those comments because they are not based in fact. Refugees make up a very small portion of new Canadians but people combine the two when it is convenient for their arguments. The fact is that the traditional white Canadian population is not growing and with baby boomers retiring we need some people to fill in that gap in the work force that is coming. These new Canadians overwhelmingly will be paying into the pension system that these baby boomers will be using and will be taking care of these ungrateful white people living in retirement homes some day. Tell you what, when you get to an old age and you can no longer wash or wipe yourself, why don’t you tell that immigrant what you think of them if you feel so strongly about it. Tell them that they should be happy that we let them into our country so that they can whip your bottom. I can tell you right now that the majority on here talks a big game but when it comes right down to it they hide behind some web site post in order to air their views and not to people faces. Again pathetic. For example Pradip says “Hey rather than give refugees that just moved here pensions, cut them off and send them to NWT 1000km away from populated area. Hey this government wants to cut the length of time they have to be in this country from 10 years to 3 years, so they can collect our hard earned pensions. So that SENIORS stand up this time and be HEARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! The refugees are
running this fine country of Canada...” I cannot believe that people are beating up on the very people that will care for them in the future. Are you that short sighted that you do not see the immense contributions they have made to our society? As for the question as to who is an immigrant. The saying that everyone is an immigrant except the first nations does not mean literally everyone was born outside of Canada. It means that you and me and our ancestors are here because of immigration. But I think most know this but willfully pretend like they do not understand the intent of everyone is an immigrant. So lay off immigrants because I do not want them to thing all white people think this way when I end up in a retirement home in about 40 years and need help getting to the toilet.