Brigitte Pellerin Online

Sounds good now, maybe (especially if you’ll be retiring soon and didn’t think you needed to save money since you had what you thought was an iron-clad pension fund, eh?), but how could it possibly work with fewer than 8 workers per pensioner? Don’t these people know anything about demography?

QUEBEC — As the global financial crisis jeopardizes the future of private pension plans, the Quebec government is taking the unprecedented move of guaranteeing benefits to pensioners and workers of companies whose plans go bankrupt.

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The legislation gives the QPP the authority to improve benefits to workers if needed. If the targeted pension plans have insufficient assets to cover benefits, the government will pay the required sums to make them solvent.

Quebec companies will have 10 years rather than five years to replenish shortfalls in their pension plans. Currently, the market value of the assets of Quebec’s private pension plans is 70 per cent of their total solvency liabilities, or what they need to pay out in benefits. This represents a $22-billion shortfall to bring solvency levels up to 100 per cent. Many cash-strapped companies face serious problems in meeting their pension contribution obligations.

“We are the first in Canada to take these measures …We aim to protect pensioners by taking over pension plans that go bankrupt and ensuring that benefits are paid out,” Mr. Hamad said yesterday. “It was urgent that we act now… It gives companies more liquidity and reassures workers and pensioners.”

I don’t have a pension plan. Not the kind that other people contribute to, anyway. I put money aside myself. And what I’m looking at is paying more taxes on what I earn (and the income my savings generate) to guarantee pension benefits to a generation that thought they could always spend more than they had. Is this what they mean when they talk about compassion and social justice?