2022 CPC Leadership Discussion: Et tu Redeux

[brihard]

Last I read the Chief Actuary assessed CPP as comfortably viable through 75 years- with legislated contributions exceeding the minimum amount to maintain that status.

Might some fat to trim without it being a zero sum game

It would take a serious trim to make a visible impact on paychecks.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I too am not your average 36 year old Canadian. Having seen my father work in a gig economy, have nothing to show for, and scrape by well into his 70s with a OAS/CPP cheque motivates the hell out of me not to let a good thing go to waste.

The problem I see with my own teenagers is that they and their peers have no motivation to play the long game. They saw the long game fuck everyone over in 2008, 2019, during COVID, and where we are now. They are disinterested or dissolutioned in the idea you can climb up the ladder with education, because none of them will be able to afford to carry that debt along with their cost of living. They know that companies aren't promoting up, so they're no loyal to one employer or another and will jump ship if the vibes are off. They aren't incentivized by benefits, because you can't pay a mortgage in benefits.

So there is the crux of their reasoning and what PP and the CPC is banking on: Fuck you, pay me. Look at the LPC Ads, for example. They're talking to people who already have security in this current environment. Homeowners, people with families (who are much older than 18-25), pensioners, folks who would choose who they vote for akin to what shade of pink to paint the powder room. That is not the lifestyle of most Millenial/Gen Z/Gen A kids coming up to voting age.

On the flip side, the CPC are presenting the opposite narrative for immediate relief and gratification: cut everything that gives those "others" support to put more money in your pocket. Cut anything that doesn't generate jobs, housing, or increases our economy. The follow on effects are not worth the immediate payout if we do this.

Fuck you, pay me.

I would love to see what that looms like 40 years down the road, but I will hopefully be in a retirement facility playing Cribbage and telling the nurses I used to tie an onion to my belt; which was the style at the time.

Yup. But what most people won’t really think about with CPP is employer matching as a significant boost to your benefit. Any retirement benefit that includes any additional contributions that you aren’t making yourself is an immediate boost to the investment.

 

[ArmyRick]

Yup. But what most people won’t really think about with CPP is employer matching as a significant boost to your benefit. Any retirement benefit that includes any additional contributions that you aren’t making yourself is an immediate boost to the investment.

Dude, your missing the point. Current 18-24 year olds could NOT give a rats ass about any of it, notta. They are probably so far in desperate survival mode (Sorry, dear, we can't move in together, I can't afford to move out of my parents basement) that all of that is nothing but gobble-dee goop nonsense that has no meaning to them.

We as a country should NEVER have put them in the situation in the first place.

 

[brihard]

Dude, your missing the point. Current 18-24 year olds could NOT give a rats ass about any of it, notta. They are probably so far in desperate survival mode (Sorry, dear, we can't move in together, I can't afford to move out of my parents basement) that all of that is nothing but gobble-dee goop nonsense that has no meaning to them.

We as a country should NEVER have put them in the situation in the first place.

I’m not missing any point. 18-24 year olds aren’t renowned for having informed views on financial planning for retirement. Of course most kids would take the cash up front. They probably would prefer not to pay into EI either. I’m ignoring that preference because it makes for bad policy in the long run.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Which we know, by informing ourselves of the result of Canadian Parliament’s Vote on Bill C-35, Child Care, vote #385 on June 19, 2023, to be factually wrong. Essentially, the Liberal ad LIED to Canadians, but hey, some voters will believe the “I heard he [Poilievre] voted against child day care… “ Clearly Ms. Liberal Canadian portrayed in the ad heard wrong.

The facts are that 100% of Conservatives, all 110/110 voted for the Child Care legislation.

Ironically, not all Liberal MPs voted for it. 98.7% of Liberals voted YEA, 151/153. Two Liberal MPs paired their votes with Bloq Quebecois members who did not vote.
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You're bang on -- no political party produces ads under oath

 

[ArmyRick]

No, you really are missing the point. Comparing 18-24 years old from different generations is ridiculous. Yes young people generally don't think things all the way through.

My own perspective? I was 18-24 in 1991-1997. I fully understood and appreciated paying CPP (and fully believed it would be there). However I also save over 10G from my first tour overseas at the time because I knew there was a chance I could but my own home. Within a decade. And I did. Say that to young people now.

 

[brihard]

No, you really are missing the point. Comparing 18-24 years old from different generations is ridiculous. Yes young people generally don't think things all the way through.

My own perspective? I was 18-24 in 1991-1997. I fully understood and appreciated paying CPP (and fully believed it would be there). However I also save over 10G from my first tour overseas at the time because I knew there was a chance I could but my own home. Within a decade. And I did. Say that to young people now.

Your perspective is skewed. Most youth won’t be in the comparatively strong financial position of a deploying CAF member. I was; I turned 22 in Kandahar and I banked and invested a lot from that tour. Most of my peers didn’t have that path open to them. Even if CAF recruited and staffed fully, most youth wouldn’t have that opportunity. Your and my experiences in our early 20s in our respective eras don’t match what the kids now are facing.

The kids now struggle to start good and lucrative careers. A bunch succeed; more don’t. That’s a separate economic and policy problem. It doesn’t mean their opinion on EI or CPP is any more informed than most of my or your generation was at that age. The housing crisis doesn’t change that, although options like the FHSA, TFSA and the home buyer’s option within RRSP are of some value there. Various governments can claim credit for those.

if you think there’s ’a point’ I’m missing, clearly point out what that specific point is. You’re basically just saying I’m wrong without specifying what I’m wrong about.

Policy and platforms have to cater to the right now, but also have to suit the long game. That means ignoring some people who may have opinions that help them in the short term but screw them in the long run.

 

[Remius]

I remember doing CAF recruiting presentations in schools and we always mentioned the pension and how young they could be when they retired. Most of that went over most of their heads.

Pay, yes because they wanted to know what they would get payed, and the cool stuff they might get to do. But pension wasn’t a thing they were overly concerned about. That was late nineties to mid 2000s.

My friends and I didn’t really talk pensions back then either but we certainly do now lol.

 

[IKnowNothing]

Can anyone point to Poilievre's actual comments? Are there specifics that support a debate on the merits of a fundamental/material change to CPP?

 

[mariomike]

18-24 year olds aren’t renowned for having informed views on financial planning for retirement.

Right.

We didn't have the internet to turn to advice "back when the Earth was cooling". LOL

Went to work for the muni when I was 18. Retired on my 55th birthday.

If you guys are talking about employee pensions, we were automatically enrolled when we hired on. It was mandated.

OMERS membership for continuous full-time employees is mandatory; they must enrol in OMERS immediately when they are hired.

Do your work. Live your life. Simple as that. Maybe it was not as simple as that. But, it seemed that way.

 

[Good2Golf]

Can anyone point to Poilievre's actual comments? Are there specifics that support a debate on the merits of a fundamental/material change to CPP?

He has not varied from the publicly available CPC Policy Statement: https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/23175001/990863517f7a575.pdf

 

[The Bread Guy]

He has not varied from the publicly available CPC Policy Statement ...

Which Team Blue says it doesn't have to follow

Also, Team Blue DID vote for OAS increases IAW Team Separatist's demands in the House not too long ago, which isn't in the policy statement - but that got a bit ... muted a bit after the vote.

We'll see how it unfolds during the campaign - whenever TF it happens

 

[brihard]

I may be working off bad info. I had read that he wants to reduce CPP deductions, but now I’m unable to source that. I’ll step back from the line of discussion until I can find something to back it.

With that said…

He has not varied from the publicly available CPC Policy Statement: https://cpcassets.conservative.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/23175001/990863517f7a575.pdf

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The same policy platform talks about changing public sector pensions to defined contribution from defined benefit. THAT should alarm anyone in CAF or other federal jobs.

 

[Good2Golf]

The same policy platform talks about changing public sector pensions to defined contribution from defined benefit. THAT should alarm anyone in CAF or other federal jobs.

Yes.


I actually don’t have an issue with that, even if retroactively applied, to be honest. For a number of reasons, I think that is good policy, from de facto means testing the sustainability of the Government’s obligations, to reducing the bias of government work as guilded payout for chronic low productivity of the public service. Any adjustment the Government put to DC pension benefits would be aligned with economic factors that would be equally applicable for all Canadians, public and private sectors alike. Frankly, I have mentally written of my DB (or future DC) pension anyway, because I believe that Government may at some point in the future reneg or go bankrupt. I invested heavily in registered and tax-free saving schemes as well as worked the crap out of my successive mortgages…because quite simply, I don’t trust the government to ‘be there’…not my CFSA pension, not CPP, I don’t want (nor qualify anyway for) OAS. I am totally at ease with paying some future pain to ensure that Canadian society can more equitably prosper from citizenship. That doesn’t mean I’m willing to sacrifice just to have some fiscally irresponsible shitshow spending Government squander my and others’ contribution to the cause, but I don’t shy away from being part of the solution to dogmatically align how society’s pensioners (all of them, public, private, means-tested old age, etc.) benefit from the various pension schemes in Canada.

So yes, the party that has DC as a pension policy to align public servants with the majority of other citizen pensioners.

 

[The Bread Guy]

.... The same policy platform talks about changing public sector pensions to defined contribution from defined benefit. THAT should alarm anyone in CAF or other federal jobs.

To be scrupulously fair, he doesn't have to follow THAT bit either The policy doc mention does fall in line with former Team Blue efforts to set up a legal framework for "targeted benefit plans" while PP was a minister, but I don't recall PP being the lead on that one.

Also, IIRC, Team Red tried early on to play a bit of this same game (again, IIRC, pulling from the same Blue legislation just as they took over), with unions pushing hard to stop it.

Seems this might be enough of a government money saver (payouts in the event of retroactive implementation notwithstanding) that it appeals to team jersey's of all colours - maybe not Team Orange, but still ...

Worth watching out for with any team.

 

[mariomike]

But pension wasn’t a thing they were overly concerned about.

No need to be overly, or underly, concerned about something one has no control over.

Regular Force members automatically join the plan when they enroll in the Regular Force

 

[brihard]

No need to be overly, or underly, concerned about something one has no control over.

More a matter of kids at the start of their careers probably aren’t thinking ahead to retirement.

 

[Remius]

More a matter of kids at the start of their careers probably aren’t thinking ahead to retirement.

30 to 35 years is long way away at that age.

Sat down with my boy this morning to discuss retirement savings. It’s not that he wasn’t interested, he was, but it’s so far down the line, that he has more immediate concerns that has his attention.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

30 to 35 years is long way away at that age.

Sat down with my boy this morning to discuss retirement savings. It’s not that he wasn’t interested, he was, but it’s so far down the line, that he has more immediate concerns that has his attention.

Food, housing, debt, that noise the car is making...

I can stretch a buck as well as the next person, but like my Financial Planner said "that belt ran out of holes to tighten a recession and a half ago..."

If folks are getting shaken down for basic essentials, retirement savings are a dream. Seeing a large chunk of your paycheck go towards a pension plan you may or may not be able to utilize is a huge motivating factor for young Canadians to say, essentially...

 

[Good2Golf]

30 to 35 years is long way away at that age.

Sat down with my boy this morning to discuss retirement savings. It’s not that he wasn’t interested, he was, but it’s so far down the line, that he has more immediate concerns that has his attention.

Totally get that, Remius. My son is a ‘seasoned Millennial’ so he embodies much of the Millennial mindset of enjoy life step by step, but I did lovingly hammer fiscal responsibility in a business planning, revenues vs expenses vis a vis retained earnings and future planning into him and I’m proud to say he took it to heart and is in a much better position than his generational Millennial or GenZ cohorts…he at times displays ‘Well fuck that, I guess I have to look after myself!’ GenX traits when he sees government policies spend, spend, spend…

The issue with today’s ‘spend for the moment’ Government, is it absolutely sets up our future generations up for extended periods of tough times. Accordingly, I am up for contributing to ways that can help them in the future, like accepting retroactive downgrade of my CAF DB pension to DC. I absolutely will not sit back and crow about sitting pretty with a healthy DB pension while others angst over their future ability to participate productively in Canada’s future society.

 

[lenaitch]

No, you really are missing the point. Comparing 18-24 years old from different generations is ridiculous. Yes young people generally don't think things all the way through.

My own perspective? I was 18-24 in 1991-1997. I fully understood and appreciated paying CPP (and fully believed it would be there). However I also save over 10G from my first tour overseas at the time because I knew there was a chance I could but my own home. Within a decade. And I did. Say that to young people now.

You might be an outlier. Perhaps at that age you had significant financial literacy. You had the 'advantage' (for want of a much, much better word) of a period of significantly enhanced income which most employees do not. Personal experience and observing others, most kids, then or now, do not share that perspective. I thought not a whit about pensions when I was in my 20s other than it was a big chunk on my paystub, and that was back in the day when you got a stub or statement every two weeks to stare at. All I cared about was a hot car and cool stereo system. I didn't get married and start a family until my mid-30s and that's when the perspective changed. I'm not convinced the kids to day are much different. If they have parents that are trying to hit them over the head with a better perspective, good for them. One advantage they do have now is a better array of planners, advisors and investment methods to take advantage of. We had none of that.