CARP is calling the federal government’s refusal to allow Ontarians to use the CPP payroll deduction system to contribute to Ontario’s provincial pension plan a “big disappointment.”
It wants Ottawa to let Ontario access the existing CPP payroll deduction mechanism to collect contributions, administer the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP), integrate the ORPP within the RRSP contribution limits, or make the legislative changes that will treat ORPP like the CPP for tax purposes, all of which would help Ontario to establish its provincial pension plan.
Read: Ottawa won’t co-operate on ORPP
“Disagreeing as a matter of policy that the Ontario government should not establish a supplementary pension plan as it was elected to do is one thing; forcing taxpayers to pay extra to administer the plan unnecessarily seems unduly churlish,” says Susan Eng, CARP’s vice-president of advocacy.
In a letter to Ontario Finance Minister Charles Sousa last week, federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver said the federal government wouldn’t help the province implement the ORPP and added that the provincial pension plan would “take money from workers and their families, kill jobs, and damage the economy.”
“This ensures that the cost of setting up the ORPP will be much greater than necessary,” Eng says, adding it could also delay the rollout of the ORPP.
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