Although, like most people, I don't understand why we need another federal election in Canada, I am glad that the Minister of Finance didn't give in to certain demands from the NDP -- their only realistic source of saving grace in this cycle -- such as an overly-unrealistic increase in Canada Pension Plan benefits.
I'm not opposed to restructuring the Canada Pension Plan, but I am opposed to increasing payouts from the plan in a way that pays out to a person that isn't commensurate with the amount that that person paid in.
In other words, if they want to say that you have to contribute an extra X dollars to the plan every year and that, as a result, you'll receive Y more dollars in benefit when you are retired, then I am OK with that. But I'm not OK with saying that you've paid in X dollars all your life and were told you'd be getting Y dollars when you retire, but now that you're close to retirement and haven't put enough money aside, we're going to give you more than Y dollars without requiring you to make any significant additional contribution to the CPP, seeing as you don't have many working years left. The missing part of this story, of course, is that people like me would be footing the bill for it.
As I understand it, if you're an immigrant to this country who arrives in mid-life, you are allowed to participate in the pension plan to the extent that you've contributed. You wouldn't, for example, receive the same pension upon retirement as someone who had been contributing for their entire working life.
Why should it be any different for a non-immigrant?
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