QUEEN’S PARK: Dwight Duncan’s comments yesterday further demonstrates that the Liberals are unwilling to accept that urgent action is needed to tackle the looming threat to retirement security in Ontario, PC Seniors and Retirement Security Critic Julia Munro said.
“I am shocked that Dwight Duncan prefers to protect gold-plated pensions at the expense of the middle class,” Munro said. “Ontario’s pension system needs to be fair for everyone, not gold-plated for some and non-existent for others.”
“The last person that should be commenting on pension reform is Dwight Duncan,” Munro said, citing that for nine years, the Liberals stood by and watched while taxpayers have been forced to pay higher taxes to pay for the gold-plated benefits for government workers, while Ontarians have access to nothing.
Tim Hudak and the PC Caucus recently released
Paths to Prosperity: Sustainable Retirement Security – the fifth in a series of discussion papers that features six transformative ideas to address the problems facing Ontario’s pension system.
The paper proposes to introduce a new, portable pension option for Ontarians who do not have access to a workplace plan called Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs).
It also proposes that going forward new government employees should only be offered defined contribution pension plans, which can’t run deficits or lead to costly shortfalls that taxpayers are expected to top-up.
“Nine years of reckless tax-and-spend decisions by Duncan and the Liberal government have resulted in a made-in-Ontario debt and jobs crisis. Their managerial incompetence has jeopardized the problems facing the pensions of millions of Ontarians,” added Munro.
“It’s clear that only the Tim Hudak and the Ontario PCs are focused on protecting taxpayers from unaffordable pensions, while ensuring that all hard working men and women have access to one,” Munro concluded.
