Should public-service employees pay more towards their pensions?

Of course they should pay more. Plus these gold plated pensions need to be changed over to DC plan type. Anything the union says in defense is strictly self serving, they have no concept of financial reason reasoning. That being said, the outrageous MP pension plan has to be dealt with. The political pigs are getting too much at the taxpayer trough.

Federal MPs of all political stripes with their piggy noses in the pension trough will not lead by example. It is amazing that that the Canadian public puts up with this legalized larceny.

Let start by putting back the 30 billion they stole from the pension fund that they said wasn't needed then lets talk.

Those who manage the public service defined benefit plan are the ones responsible for its solvency. Keep the politicians out of it. They will only screw it up.
Those who are in favour of Defined Contribution plans have not walked the path and live in fantasy land. Individuals are neither equipped to manage these funds on their own and are dependent on the profit driven financial sector. Upon retirement with a DC plan, a financial advisor convinced me to invest in mutual funds as I didn't have a big enough funds to pay out at the poverty level (30G's/yr) beyond age 65. Within 2 years, he called me to inform me the Technological bubble had lost 1/2 of my money, with no recovery timetable in sight. Needless to say I do not have a pension plan today as the markets consumed all of my money.....

WHOA !!

public service employees pay the same as everyone else into their pensions. We just need to stop giving golden handshakes to management and MPP'S who only have to serve one term in office to collect a full pension for life.

The pensions paid to retired people should be increased by at least 1/2 to 3?4s of what they are presently receiving and there should not be any claw backs from existing pensions being paid now. To many eldery people a living on the poverty line. They pensions are raised by the cost of living increase so the say, but the anount of 1 to 3 % is not enough as most of it is taken away by taxes. I would love to se our government big wigs, CEOs live on what I have comming in my pensions. They could not and would cry because the could not pay their rent, buy food, own a car, pay insurance nad many other payments.
Give the politations the $437.97 and $459.37, these are the amounts paid out by CPP, Old age pensions. See if they could survive a month on this or even a week. Let tehm see what is left to live on for the month.

In my view, the time for the public sector uinions to get real is LONG overdue.....if they advocate for lavish government funded (ie taxpayers) pensions for their members, then they should be fine with all of us working schmucks having the same privalege....(I am sure unions wouldnt mind chipping in for the rest of us)..the fact is, it cant happen....we dont want to turn into a Greece....union members have had a free ride at the expense of taxpayers for years..the greed they display never ceases to amaze me......they must back off on the free ride they take at taxpayers expense....or kill the golden goose.......there is no choice. To do otherwise will create a taxpayers revolt....and then who pays for the party they have had for decades. AGAIN...GET REAL!!!

It is simple robbery what public servants and politicians receive in terms of pensions. The worker in the private sector is asked to fund his own pension, save for retirement, pay down debt, etc. After taxes of every conceivable kind, cost of living increases, minimal return on investments, etc. how are we to pay for our retirement? It is time for these people to get into the real world and at least fund 50% of their pensions. We are heading to such a divided society or haves and have nots, rich and poor, I now understand why revoultions take place such as then French revolution and the communist uprising of 1917. Also remember that the USA came about because of unjust taxation on the Colonialists. Those who forget the past may be doomed to repeat it. It is time for fairness.

don't you see it, the gov't does'nt want to pay out pensions to poor working people, they want to break us, if they had their way, our pension plans would be a gas chamber, or a bullet to the head, then to squeeze the last bit out of us, they would send us to a dog food or glue factory.

Rather than destroying defined benefit plans (which employees contribute to)(50% in my case),and thus destroying the purchasing power of these pensioners-lets look at pulling EVERYONE up to a decent standard of living in retirement. Expand CPP and leverage the investing power and cost efficiencies offered by large, institutional pension plans by encouraging them to allow smaller, private plans in.The fact is, employer & employee contributionsonly make up up about 20% of any given db public pension. The other 80% comes from returns. Thus it is actually a tax efficient way of delivering pensions. There are plenty of areas of waste that can be addressed(the aforementioned MP & MPP pensions are one). People withe good pensions make solid contributions to their communities-they pay taxes, support small businesses, charities, etc. Destroying good pensions is short sighted and ultimately counterproductive.

Nowhere in this political bafflegab has anyone bothered to mention that federal public servant pensioners lose a significant portion of their public servant pension benefits when then turn 65 because their pensions are reduced penny for penny by the amount he/she receives in OAS and/or CPP. And if a federal public servant chooses to retire before age 65 and collect reduced CPP benefits; when he does reach 65 his public sector pension is not reduced by the amout of CPP he actually gets each month: it is reduced by the amount he would have received if he had waited until 65 to retire! This is NOT the case with Ontario public servants, nor is it the case with private sector pensions: everyone else can expect their retirement income to increase at age 65: federal public servants know their annual income is going to plummet by hundreds of dollars per month. (It would have been nice if the federal government or the union let pensioners know this would happen BEFORE they retired, but I guess that makes too much sense, because it certainly didn't happen that way!) So although federal public servants may contribute a lower percentage of their income to their pensions than do private sector workers, they also get less! If you think federal public servants should pay more for their pensions, then go after the sharks in parliament who get full pensions after just six years of service and leave the average joe who had to work 35 years to get $25,000/year in benefits (before OAS & CPP reductions!) alone!

Gail speaks like a typical public servant....she talks as tho everyone out there gets some kind of pension...the fact is, most taxpayers do NOT have a pension...what about that group?...where is our contribution coming from?....as everyone knows, any funds for retirement for us are 100% funded by guess who....us...on top of that, we are forced to contribute to the the public sector workers thru our tax contributions......again, public service sector....time to wake up!!!....we the taxpayers are getting screwed.

No I think everything is fine, as Harper would say,Get used to it", all us tax payers should work longer, harder and without grumbling. Politicians and senior public servants should be given better pensions, so they can have the choice to retire early from a very stressful occupation. The rest of us should be content with with our DC pensions, they help supports a large infrastructure of employees who would otherwise be unemployed or employed doing other useful things like weather forecasting. Tax payers in mannual occupations (like roofers, construction workers, hospital workers etc) in particular should not be given the opportunity to retire until 80 years of age thus ensuring tax payers money is not wasted, hopefully they will die on the joband be buried at the expense of the private insurance company again saving the state that possible extra expense.
Going forward with these policies in place will ensure Canada most finacially responsible country in the world. The best and brightest will survive in very young political elite (all the old ones have retired) and the immigration policy will ensure the import of low cost labour.

Perfect eh!

People need to differentiate between public servants and MP's lavish pensions.As I retired civil servant I can tell you that I paid into my plan for 37 years and was still penalized for leaving 3 months early.My employer (the federal government )paid into my plan as they should but I matched it DOLLAR for DOLLAR. I also paid EXTRA to have it indexed.As for Defined Contribution plans those provide no security at all for workers as a downturn in the market such as we've just seen can wipe out all your investments and maybe just before or after you retire.What do you live on then?Are we gonna leave ordinary Canadians at the mercy of the markets with all their speculation and fraud after working their entire life serving the public?All canadians deserve better than that.Let the politicians have the same plan as their employees after 35 years not 6 and make them match it as we do.

Right on Doug. People should know that the federal government took $30 billion out of the public service pension fund and refuse to put it back - I'm sure that money would make a big dent in the shortfall. And if politicians want to talk about raising the employee contribution, let's talk about them paying a fair share of their golden pension - to say that someone can expect a pension after 6 years is ridiculous and then to say they don't have to pay 1% of the share during that time. I paid into my pension plan for 36 years, not 6, and I paid my share - let the politicians do the same.

@ Steve ONt
@ Yvonne Fenwick
You all sicken me, you disgusting degenerates.
So what you are saying is, on the one hand the government "took" 30 billion out of your public service pension fund and refuse to put it back?????
... and yet you still go to work for them. You are enablers and are therefore worse than the dispicable politicians.
You should be hung by the neck!

@Salmonseeker
I say you are a fraud. I say you are currently working for the government and paid to post such things in an attempt to quell a situation which looks volatile in the eyes of your handlers. And here’s why:
1) Quote: “Keep the politicians out of it. They will only screw it up.” These statements reveal that you still have some sort of interest in the outcome of gold plated pensions. Why would that be if you’ve already lost your pension to the bankers who bribe your politicians – those same politicians and bankers who stuck you with the peasant’s DC plan? Had you truly been robbed as you say, then you would be jaded like the rest of us and not cheerleading for some faceless bureaucrat, or do-nothing MP, to get what you lost. It doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t fit with the human condition.
2) Quote: “Those who are in favour of Defined Contribution plans have not walked the path and live in fantasy land.” This statement implies that you are in favour of defined benefit plans, as opposed to defined contribution plans. But for whom are you advocating these types of plans? You have already lost yours, haven’t you? So why would you so strangely be wishing prosperity for bunglers and sloths who are in most ways responsible for your shortcomings? Hhmmmm? Very interesting.
3) Quote: “Individuals are neither equipped to manage these funds on their own and are dependent on the profit driven financial sector.” This, ironically, is somewhat true. However, you seem to glaze over a significant detail, which would be blatant to you if your story were legitimate. You see – it only appears as though the financial sector is profit driven. But this is only if you are an imbecile. Because anyone who actually looks at it knows that it is not the financial sector that is profit driven, but the soulless sub-humans who preside over the corporations that make up the financial sector. These “people” have names, and are indictable. But we’ve allowed them to hide behind straw-men because their corporations are not indictable. This is the scam, and it is being used everyday at our expense. It would be obvious to you if you were faced with the same hardships as the rest of us. But you unfortunately have sold your soul, it seems, because you sound like you want to perpetuate the rape & pillage / collect CEO genocide-bonus / declare “straw-man” corporate-bankruptcy model. Why would that be, unless you profit from it? How black your heart must be. I wonder what your home life must be like when you oppose all that is human? I bet your personal-life is like ice.

Get rid of the pensions altogether and go with matched contributions. My brother works for a large, non-union, company and they match RRSP contributions up to $2000. This way the company is not burden with pension obligations. With people living longer, the government will be in a world of hurt as they are paying out pensions to two maybe three generations. The same should go for the MPs.

Two solutions: A) ALL government workers should be paid as individual, independent contractors for their services – tasked with clear and measurable goals, then compensated at a percentage of completion of those set goals – at a wage not exceeding that of the average blue-collar contractor – and granted with the privilege of ONLY ONE EXTREMELY LIMITED TERM to serve their country (like jury duty), so that this could stem cronyism and career sloths. That way they would be in line with the rest of us… it is called equality. That way, if you greedy son-of-a-bitches want a gold-plated pension, then you can try to create it yourselves on the rigged stock market like we all have to.
Or - B) ALL government workers should VOLUNTEER their time and collect ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR SALARY OR COMPENSATION!!!! If you truly want to be a PUBLIC SERVANT who is supposed to be there FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD, then start acting like it instead of like the parasites that you are. Do something productive for you’re your country – as your positions would suggest you are there for. If there were absolutely no salary for public servants, then such positions would attract altruistic people instead of lazy degenerates. But lets be serious, if you can find me even one government worker who would choose altruism over laziness compensated by others, than I would say there might be hope. However, there is no hope. These comments assure me of that. Humanity is but a glimmer in the past. All that remains is the virus that devoured it and a diseased fleshy residue.

From a different approach altogether, about pensions. I think gov't pensions should be determined by need. 'Univesality' 100 years ago was about getting civic 'privileges' to the poor, today's pensions and health care debates are about ensuring such privileges to the rich. Maybe a retired corporate lawyer, who happened to grace parliament with his or her presence, receiving a 6 digit income shouldn't even be in line for a public pension. Where is the need?