Mama, what’s a pension plan?

Cut out or print this column, put in an envelope, and come back to it in 15 years.

Because then the chickens will really be coming home to roost. And for most of us, there will be no stopping it.

When I started in the media in 1984, I was paid peanuts. Twothirds of my pay went just to pay rent and utilities, and a monthly trip to McDonald’s was a treat.

But what I did have, and didn’t appreciate, was excellent benefits. A defined benefit pension plan — along with health, dental, pharmacare and vision care that was 100 per cent paid by my employer, with no deductible. It didn’t make me any richer, but it sure dealt with any financial health surprises that might pop up — and I was young enough that I didn’t really appreciate it.

Things changed, jobs changed. Benefits got whittled away. Basic company health plans became progressively more basic, paying less of the real costs involved. (Someone somewhere in the insurance business thinks $125 is all that glasses should ever cost.)

Deductibles rose. Add-on plans, where you could pay more for better benefits, got more expensive.

Severance terms were altered, usually settling around the absolute minimum amount required by provincial law.

Most significantly, defined benefit pensions became combined defined benefit/defined contribution plans, and then, just defined contributions.

I know I’ve talked about this before, but the reckoning is coming.

My generation is the one on the cusp, the ones with a foot in both doors, the one that watched private business walk away from guaranteed pensions.

I understand why it happened; I’ve worked for a publicly traded