Why don't we all have adequate pensions?

One of the planks in Canada's brand of socialism recognizes the plight of old age and provides the Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security as a right to its citizens when they reach old age. However, all Canadians do not have a pension plan. According to the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, about three quarters of Canadians in the private sector do not have a workplace pension. Government employees as well as employers in the private sector provide the CPP which has mandatory shared contributions and the pensions may be inadequate but it was meant to reduce poverty in old age when it was implemented over 40 years ago. Government and many private sector employers supplement the CPP with additional pensions for their employees but many do not leaving employees without a plan unless they have been able to put aside funds in an individual RRSP or some other investments. This subjects them to the uncertainty of the stock market leaving them vulnerable at a time when they may need their pension most.

Government pensions seem to be the most robust to weather the volatility of the market but relying on the CPP will not meet the original goal of the plan to eliminate poverty as we reach old age and by that time these people will be unable to support ourselves with paid work. This means that people who only have the CPP will need to put more aside during their working life time to supplement their pension safety net.

Pension advocates have proposed a second tier of national pension relief. One that would be robust enough to withstand changes in demographics and a volatile market. A supplementary pension plan that would ensure that the "pension gap" could be covered. However, details on this "second tier" pension are not clear yet. Would it be mandatory or voluntary? Could everyone afford it? How would it withstand demographic changes over time?

Lets have more discussion and ask government to be transparent in the discussions they are having on alleviating the pension gap.

RE-ORDERING PRIORITIES

(The following is an excerpt taken from a paper produced and made public by the Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers - "Re-ordering Priorities: How the budget can address poverty in a meaningful way", Submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, September 2006)

The top priority for all levels of government in Canada should be the elimination of poverty, and that the national budget as a policy document embodying our values as a society should provide the means to this end. In the short run, efforts must be focused on alleviating the circumstances of poor and low income people. In the long run, though, what we should be aspiring to is a society in which everyone has sufficient means to live a fulfilling life, not excluded from the mainstream and able to take advantage of all of the benefits of our prosperous nation.

Policies directed towards reducing and eventually eliminating poverty represent a solid investment in our future. Social programs should have top priority, over-riding tax cuts which disproportionably benefit those who already are well off. Governments sometimes talk about the need for a program to be sustainable. By that they mean that it can continue to be funded over the long term. Obviously, that is important. But sustainability has another side to it which we ought not to forget. Is the current level of poverty sustainable? Are increasing levels of homelessness sustainable? At what cost? Until we acknowledge that our Canadian society cannot tolerate the inequity and injustice of poverty and we reach a collective decision to deploy our considerable national resources to address the issue in a meaningful way, then our country will not prosper.

It is not difficult to see how people get trapped in poverty, worn down by the constant effort to survive and unable to muster the resources necessary to move onwards. They must also deal with the stigma of poverty, a view espoused by some that the poor are somehow responsible for their plight. Such a punitive view does not take into account the structural mechanisms that render the poor powerless and leave them stranded because of an inadequate social program and the lack of political will to make meaningful changes.

Core Services: The Role of Government in Community Services, Education, Economic Development, Health Services, Justice and Transportation/Infrastructure:

Health, educational, social, and justice services, as well as the provision of economic development and the construction and maintenance of infrastructure systems are all core services. Although all of these core services are interrelated, experiences in the area of providing social services have shown that service provision in the areas of health, education, justice, economic development and social services are highly interconnected. Reductions in services in one of these areas negatively affect the quality of service provision in the other areas.

Core services are those that are essential to the welfare of the population. Health, education, justice and social services, as well as economic development and infrastructure development are all considered to be core services. However, services in the areas of health, social service, education, justice and economic development are all services that are associated, either directly or indirectly, with human need. Therefore, these services are not only considered to be core services, but due to the human need factor, require special consideration.

The majority of current social, health, and education services, as well as economic development initiatives must remain as government-provided services although some may be appropriate for the voluntary sector in community-based programs. The rationale behind this argument is that the private sector would not provide adequate social assistance, universal and high quality health services, or attract wealth-creating businesses to the province, as these programs conflict with the primarily profit-making interests of private enterprise. In addition, there are concerns about the private sector providing education, justice and social programs, as these services are associated with providing human needs to vulnerable individuals. As such, the possibility that the needs of these vulnerable individuals will be exploited for the profitable gains of the private sector. We need to be concerned about the affects of children's exposure to commercialism in a classroom setting, about inadequate levels of care for incarcerated individuals and about significant reductions in rates of social assistance which may result, if the private sector were permitted to procure the administration of these services.

Responsible fiscal management must begin with informed policy initiatives. In order to achieve an informed perspective, government must conduct focus group consultations with service-providers to collect information pertaining the types of services provided, and to identify perceived gaps in social service provision. Then, using the data derived from the focus groups, government should conduct a quantitative assessment of clients' service consumption patterns, and their level of satisfaction with, both government-provided and community-based social services in various communities. The results of such a survey would identify which social services the clients deem as absolutely necessary, isolate areas of service duplication and indicate areas where social services need to be restructured or provided by a community-based program. In short, a service consumption survey could result in identifying areas where greater efficiencies could be implemented, without reducing the quality or quantity of service provision to clients.

The initial steps in providing responsible fiscal management and accountable policy formation should involve the consultation and survey processes outlined above. After the data analysis of the service consumption survey, a discussion paper which summarizes the results, should be published and distributed to any interested members of the community, including service providers and service consumers. Then, another series of public consultations should be scheduled, so as to have interested members of the community discuss the survey's results and formulate recommendations. Upon evaluation of the recommendations collected at the second phase of public consultations, policy initiatives would then be formulated and publicized.

Is food aid enough?

Time may be running out for the one billion people who cannot find enough food to sustain themselves each day around the planet. Food programs operated by the United Nations and the many NGO's around the globe are only stopgap measures although they are necessary in the short term. The problem is that they are only a temporary measure and will never be able to meet the overall need.

Perhaps it is time to propose the idea of moving populations. In spite of all the programs that try to improve food production such as expensive irrigation systems, resistant seed production, and better fertilizers this will be unsuccessful in the end in certain areas of the planet. There are in areas around the globe that have unfavorable growth conditions yet millions of people live and try to sustain themselves there. The arid areas around the planet can be easily seen as well as the more fertile areas where there is enough moisture and fertile soil to grow food.

Maybe it is time to seriously think about how it might be possible to move large populations from arid areas to more fertile areas of the globe. Obviously mass relocation of populations poses huge logistical and cultural disruption but in the end people need to feel that they are able to sustain themselves.

Can we feed everyone?

A real concern that everyone on the planet should be thinking about is the ability of the planet to continue to feed all its people. According to statistics one in six people in the world's poorest countries cannot access enough food and go hungry every day. That's one billion people that cannot get enough food to lead healthy lives. Changing weather patterns interfere with food production after floods, drought, and earthquakes making it impossible for the growing of food crops which must depend on a fragile and unpredictable growing season.

The full weight of these problems are not the priority of rich nations. Even though some attempt is made by the world media to bring this to our attention, it is usually done to show the misery without a full explanation of the problem or suggesting possible solutions. Do rich nations simply watch what is happening or can they forget their differences and join together to fight the changes in climate that are about to be unleashed? Is any progress being made to address the changes in climate and improve food production where mass poverty exists?

The latest attempt of world leaders at the Copenhagen climate change talks in December will signal any concrete willingness to address global food production in a serious way. Lets see what they can agree to do about world food security.