I’ve spent the last few days trying to find out where the Ontario Conservatives stand on pension reforms. I’m a bit surprised that I haven’t found much.
Pensions have been getting a lot of attention of late – Canada’s Finance ministers met in December in Whitehorse to talk about how best to encourage Canadians to save more for their retirement. They agreed there was enough information in front of them on the current state of pensions and retirement savings to start looking at specific reforms – and will be coming back together in May to look at a short list of approaches.
At the same time, Ontario is moving forward on workplace pensions, having introduced legislation in December (Bill 236) that proposes a series of technical amendments to address issues raised by the Expert Commission on Pensions. A second set of legislative reforms is expected later this year.
So where are the Tories on all of this?
In two days of second reading debate last week on Bill 236, the Conservatives focused largely on citing expert views on the technical amendments contained in the legislation. That’s not surprising – but opposition parties often criticize the legislation in front of them by also talking about what it doesn’t deal with. However, the commentary last week didn’t extend to how the government should address some of the bigger, non-technical issues that will be dealt with in the government’s second bill. No laying down of the gauntlet, if you will.
A recent news release outlines the PC Caucus priorities for the spring session of the Legislature: http://www.ontariopc.com/?sc_itemid=%7b27C47F96-343E-4F02-BA74-C93453F8AF03%7d
There we see a focus on three priorities: jobs and the economy, government accountability and defending families struggling with a rising cost of living. The Conservatives have also outlined three priorities for the 2010 budget: tax relief, a cap on spending and reduction of red tape. No mention in either list of pensions or retirement issues. As an aside, one thing I noticed in looking at the Party’s news releases is that they follow the format that’s long been used by the McGuinty government. They’re short and sweet: couple of paragraphs on the issue, followed by a few pithy quotes and some quick facts. They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery…
Soon the Ontario Conservatives will be heading to Ottawa for the Party’s AGM (March 5th to 7th). Although election readiness is on the agenda, the list of policy issues to be examined doesn’t appear to address pensions: http://agm2010.ca/agenda/.
The McGuinty government is moving forward with pension reforms and is participating in a national debate on retirement savings. Proposals from the NDP are contained in a proposal entitled: Ontario Retirement Plan for all Ontarians: http://ontariondp.com/en/pensions .
Is anyone else wondering when we will see something in the form of pension reform policies from Ontario’s Tories?
