– Harper’s Attack on the ORPP an Attempt to Kill a Made-in-Ontario Solution for a Secure Retirement
News from Ontario Liberal Cabinet Minister and St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, July 27th, 2015 – Stephen Harper’s refusal to help hard-working Ontarians build a secure retirement is a new low for a Prime Minister known for playing politics and ignoring evidence.
St. Catharines Liberal MPP and Ontario cabinet minister Jim Bradley.
Last week, the Harper government publicly refused to cooperate with Ontario to create a provincial savings plan – the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) – despite knowing that many Canadians need help saving for a secure retirement and warnings from experts that people are not saving enough.
“Stephen Harper should be helping hard-working Ontarians save for retirement instead of attempting to obstruct our plan to ensure every person in the province can retire securely,” said Jim Bradley, MPP for St. Catharines. “It’s one thing to disagree or debate, but voters expect cooperation among governments on matters as serious as saving enough money to live on once you leave the workforce.”
The ORPP was a central part of the Liberal platform in the 2014 election which was supported by a majority mandate from Ontarians. Once introduced in 2017, it will help millions of working Ontarians save for retirement and provide them with a predictable income for life by aiming to replace up to 15 per cent of pre-retirement income.
Enhanced retirement savings is supported by 88% of Canadians according to a recent poll by Nanos Research for the Globe and Mail. It is also supported by prominent economists like David Dodge, pension experts, labour groups like Ontario Federation of Labour and Unifor, and seniors’ advocacy groups like CARP Canada.
Harper has a history of burying his head in the sand on any future challenges, from pensions to climate change to infrastructure. The Prime Minister’s decision to deny Ontarians a secure retirement is purely political and ironic given his personal government pension is expected to pay out over $191,000 annually.
(Niagara At Large now invites any and all of you willing share your first and last name to comment on this post.)
Niagara At Large 
Excuse me, but this has nothing to do with helping us save for our retirement, and everything to do with syphoning $10 Billion a year out of the pockets of working families to pay for a litany of well catalogued politically driven boondoggles … non-existent gas plants, e-health, Ornge, Pan Am games at $2.5 Billion loss, overpayment to Liberal “green” cronies (Conservatives & NDPers can’t get a wind-farm permit at gunpoint), billion $ a year babysitting make-work for liberal partisans, energy prices, smart meters that cost more than they save, closing of hospitals in areas that vote wrong (Welland? Port?), the delisting of OHIP covered procedures, auto insurance scam, and so on. You can’t make this stuff up.
It is a money diversion scheme pure and simple, impoverishing those who can afford it least, with no guarantee that the “pension” benefits will ever be paid … if and when they are, it is with devalued worthless scrip.
You can’t take $10 billion a year out of the hands of the people without it causing further damage to jobs. And of that $10 Billion only 30% to 50% would be reinvested. The rest … poof….”facilitation fees” and “management” … cronyism at its finest.
A line has to be drawn.
So before you go pounding on Mulcaire, Harper or Horvath, remember that they are trying to protect YOUR savings from being hijacked by an elitist cabal than will leave us in worst shape than Greece.
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Wynne thinks only of Wynne: Harper thinks only of Harper. Therefore neither one cooperates with the other. Unfortunate for Ontario; unfortunate for Canada
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Something has to be done about retirement, especially for those of us that are not getting a workplace based pension and may not get much CPP for various reasons (e.g. self-employment is one of them). People can still work hard all their lives and get next to nothing when they retire … I am not sure if the ORPP is the answer or an enhanced CPP, but we need to face reality, folks. More and more people are belonging to the contingent workforce and others are living paycheque to paycheque … to expect that everybody can save anything after they pay for housing, which goes up and up and up, groceries (which also goes up), transportation, clothing, care for their children and day to day medical/dental expenses, there is more often than not a lack of money left over to contribute to saving for anything.
If you have an independent savings account for your retirement, but not locked in (as in by an employer) and you get sick or injured on the job and eventually have to turn to social assistance or disability even for a short period of time, you will be forced to drain ALL of your retirement before you can get a dime in support, which often leaves you in debt to start with (from taxes and penalties being used against you for your presumed annual income, esp. in the year your income goes down). Leaders like Kathleen Wynne and PM Harper are not going to help people like this. We will be expected to work well into our eighties and nineties, if we last that long, just to keep a roof over our heads. I think retirement issues have to be re-thought completely. The Guaranteed Income Supplement once did bring most elderly out of poverty, but it appears now that for seniors that receive at least part of their retirement in GIS, they will be doomed to poverty for many reasons now.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am in no position to retire myself – ever, not because I “didn’t save enough”, but because of not being able to earn enough to have the money to put aside, and with all the health care cuts, having to spend more of my limited resources on health care that was once delivered universally as a right of citizenship.
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Chris
I have listened to your Conservative dialogue for years and nothing truly changes in you reasoning….. Canada, a nation that was “ONCE” respected for its Peace Keeping, Its Environmental Concern for the planet and all the accolades of admiration bestowed on Canada by most nations of the world.
Yes!!! We are very aware of the travesties perpetuated by successive Ontario Liberal Governments which accounts or should I change that to write “does not account” for the many Billions of Dollars squandered on boondoggles that baffles the mind…..But Chris
This Ontario Liberal government was re-elected because of the platform put forth by your buddy Conservative Hudak in support of Corporate Ontario and a multitude of half ass ideas, such as privatization and the giving away of Canada’s resources…This….Plus the fact the Ontario NDP folded their tent and left the scene.
You seem to support HARPER and I wonder just how much you know of this man’s past, his association with Colin Brown’s National Citizens Coalition
and his action with Judas MacKay that enabled him to eliminate the old and to many the once venerated Federal “Progressive” Conservative Party.
Do you know David Orchard? If not read his book “The Fight for Canada”
Harper will do anything to get re-elected and his recent “boondoggle” you know the one where he is using over $3 Billion dollars of our taxes plus the multitude of border line adds that fills the Television of “ALL” networks including the CBC where 10 Conservative appointed Board Members plus the CEO are know monetary supporters of HARPER’S Conservatives.
The G20 and the billions spent was meant to position HARPER as a giant in the eyes of the attending nations…But all that accomplished was to position him as a tin pot dictator in a third world country that he has shaped..
Chis this could go on and on but hopefully we will be rid of HARPER and his goons and the restoration of this once proud nation can begin …..cleaning the mess HARPER is guilty of perpetuating will take Decades and maybe Centuries and our hope is that it can begin this year.,…..
God Willing
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Joe – it is not and should not be about Harper.
It is not whether or not you approve of my politics or my choice of friends, just as I have always defended your right to voice your beliefs.
I am just as comfortable with Malcolm and Cindy as I am with those who would do right for Welland.
But focus.
It is about a massive cash grab tarted up to look like social justice. Like the Nigerian Check Scam. With your political acumen you should realize you are being misled on THIS issue.
* It is about people like Bradley who blocked placing the St. Catharines Hospital near Regional HQ and Brock … because it would mean sharing the “glory” with Peter Kormos.
* These are the same people who drove Kim Craitor from office.
* It is about Bradley & Wynne shutting down the Welland Hospital.
* It is about McGuinty & Wynne disenfranchising you and your family, impoverishing the people of Welland & Southern Niagara for politics sake.
* It is about these people creating energy poverty, job loss, loss of farming, hollowed out transportation and generally economic desolation in Southern Niagara. Why? What have we done to be so neglected?
* These are people committed to forced urbanization … the better to control and coral the hapless and the naive, to move them off the land and into concrete cubicles.
* This is the party of bread and games for the masses. Your pension check is there to be milked for the $2.5 Billion PanAm, with mind numbing chatter by Peterson about blowing untold Billions on Olympics. Have we not learned?
* These are the people who will tell you … Tough! If you don’t like it, move!.
* These are people who believe expediency is a legitimate political agenda.
* These are people who wizz on your shoes and tell you its raining.
You appear to be defending the systemic theft of your legacy by agenda-driven elites from Queens Park and Bay Street, and I don’t buy it. I respect you more than to believe that. But THIS is not the hill you should die on.
You are right that Harper is no saint. I won’t give him a blanket pass either. I’m not suggesting you vote for Harper. But in this matter, and staying on topic, he is protecting the interests of you and the overburdened people of Welland.
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Thanks Chris your spiel about my legacy is heart warming and I should bow to your rhapsody of known facts….but Chris I did have my cataracts removed a few years ago and my eyes are focused on the future of our children and I am certain that future will be hell if HARPER and his goon squad retains control… Can I interest you in having your eyes checked?????
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