Tuesday June 15, 2010
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday June 15, 2010
Planning for the Future
For the past two years, the federal government and provincial finance ministers have been looking at what to do to help Canadians better prepare for retirement.
When the bottom fell out of the stock market in the financial crisis that swept the world in 2008, company pensions and registered retirement savings plans were hit hard. It was feared that some pension plans would not be able to meet their obligations to current and future retirees — and that some retirees would have no pension at all if the companies they worked for went bankrupt.
People who had to rely on RRSP savings faced the prospect of having to work several years longer than planned to make up for their losses.
While markets have recovered much of what they gave up and many plans that were at risk are solvent again, Canadians are still worried about what their retirements will look like.
An Ipsos Reid poll commissioned for the Canadian Institute of Actuaries suggests 42 per cent of Canadians over the age of 45 feel they are not financially prepared to live comfortably after they leave the workforce.
Seventy-two per cent said they were concerned about maintaining a reasonable standard of living in retirement.
A similar poll done by Ipsos Reid in November 2006 for BMO Financial Group suggested that 70 per cent of Canadians don’t feel they’re on track with their retirement savings — or don’t know if they’re on track. (Source: CBC News)