Liberals dismiss proposal as a “baby step”
Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has pitched a private pension plan that he hopes will encourage more small-business people and self-employed Canadians to save. “This plan would say to an employer, ‘Listen, you can offer this plan but you don’t have to contribute to it.’ Employees would contribute to it, or can opt out,” explained Flaherty. “It would make a nice, easy and relatively painless way for people to contribute to their retirement.” The plan would be built on defined contributions and would be run by private financial institutions. The idea is to keep costs down by pooling money from the large number of small business people and self-employed workers who currently aren’t saving or are using smaller plans. Liberal critic Judy Sgro called the plan “a baby step,” adding “it’s not going to do much for [many] self-employed, for women that are in and out of the work force, for those in rural Canada.”