Posted: Tuesday, 31 August 2010

Over the past twelve months, working people did something they have not done for a very long time. They changed their government's mind.

Last year, on Labour Day, unions called for action on retirement security. At the time, the economic crisis and recession had left people's savings in tatters. Pension plans were under attack. RRSPs were exposed as inadequate for the vast majority of working people. Everything pointed to a looming crisis – Canadians were not saving enough to avoid poverty in retirement.

Asking people to save more was easier said than done. The reality is that most Canadians have a hard enough time paying their mortgages and putting their kids through school, which explains why only one in four people can put any money into an RRSP or a tax-free savings account.

The solution was simple. Almost every working person in the country already has access to the safest, most secure and guaranteed retirement savings plan in the world – the Canada Pension Plan. Throughout the economic crisis, nobody's CPP cheque decreased and nobody's CPP savings disappeared. But, the CPP is capped and only allows people to save enough to cover a maximum of 25% of the average wage. That's not enough for anyone to live on today.

The Canadian Labour Congress launched a campaign to expand the CPP and help everyone save more - enough to cover the basics when they retire. We asked union members to join our campaign and encouraged them to talk to their friends and neighbours. They did. (Did they ever!)

At a meeting in June, the country's finance ministers agreed that the best way to help Canadians save more for retirement was through the Canada Pension Plan. It was a sweet victory for working people.

They forced their politicians to look. They attended meetings and consultations in their communities. They wrote letters, made phone calls and sent e-mail messages to their local federal and provincial representatives. They responded with letters to their local papers, blogged and called radio stations whenever retirement security was the subject.

Working people make up the majority of the country's citizens and voters. It's impossible for politicians to ignore so many people when they make their presence felt. But getting working people to engage the people we elect and send to our legislatures and council chambers is still not as easy as it should be. Too many think it's not worth the effort, that it can't possibly make a difference.

Well, they should think again. Over just one year, we moved the federal and many provincial governments away from their previous positions on how to fix Canada's retirement security crisis towards one that benefits the vast majority of Canadians. We beat out the high-paid lobbyists who were telling politicians that the solution was more tax cuts for people who could afford to buy RRSPs. We beat out the financial and insurance industries that have made obscene profits by charging some of the highest management fees in the world on the mutual funds and small savings accounts Canadians have managed to put away.

Now, we need to get the job done. We need to make sure that laws get introduced this year to change the Canada Pension Plan and deliver better retirement security for everyone. We need to make sure those laws pass. What this means is that working people need to keep showing up and speaking up.

Lobby groups that claim to speak for all employers and pundits paid by the financial sector want to stop this important reform from happening. They've already started a desperate campaign to mislead Canadians by calling the money everyone puts into their CPP retirement savings a “payroll tax” that will hurt jobs. Nonsense like this, they hope, will scare politicians into agreeing to another round of studies and more debate.

Enough! Now, let's move our country forward. Canadians have been consulted. The experts have had their say. Canada's finance ministers agree that allowing people to save more through an expanded CPP is the simplest and the smartest start to providing real retirement security for everyone.

Labour Day is about recognizing the contributions of workers to society, and the contributions of unions to the well-being of our communities and country. The efforts of the labour movement brought health and safety laws, shorter work weeks, the weekend, and minimum labour standards to benefit all workers. But we didn't stop at the workplace. Healthcare, student loans, social housing all have their roots in the groundwork laid by the labour movement. As do public pensions.

So let's move quickly and expand the Canada Pension Plan this year so everyone can start saving more for a retirement income that's guaranteed to be enough to get by. Let's get the job done!

Happy Labour Day!