Portable pensions pledged
Liberals promise updated retirement plans, policies
“Portable pensions” for workers to take with them from job to job would be created under a provincial Liberal government, leader Kathleen Wynne says.
The Liberals, if elected June 7, wwould also “remove barriers,” so that outsiders could buy into existing pension plans — even if they have no connection to the company, she said.
Given the changing economy, ““we have to evolve the supports hat people have as well,” Wynne said at a campaign stop in downtown Toronto at Wattpad, an online publishing site wwhere writers post their work to be critiqued by other users.
“The parents and grandparents of the young people who work here may have gone into a
company and worked in that company for 35, 40 years, and come out with a pension that is allowing them to have a digni- f fied retirement.
“That’s not the case for the yyoung people who are working” today, said Wynne. “The changing economy puts that decent retirement into jeopardy … The reward for a lifetime of hard work shouldn’t be the prospect of spending your golden years struggling to make ends meet.”
The Liberals, she added, wwould “support the creation of portable pension plans, that stay with one worker from one job to the next,” allow others to join “successful plans” and also strengthen the power of the pension regulator to “intervene wwhere pensioners are treated unfairly.
“When a company is in trouble, we are going to strengthen the ability of the regulator to intervene and make sure (pensioners’) interests are taken care of,” giving them “greater priority” if the company goes bankrupt.
Wynne said more details on private-sector pensions will be released in the Liberals’ formal platform, which will be out in the next few days.
About a third of working Ontarians are enrolled in a pension plan.
But among younger workers ages 25 to 34, it’s only about one-quarter.
Wynne said the Liberals will aalso increase the power of pen- sion regulating authorities to intervene when Ontarians believe they are not receiving the pension benefits they were promised.
The premier also pledged to grant access to private-sector pension plans to workers, such as contractors or part-timers, who may not qualify for them.