Statistics Canada says the Canadian economy created more jobs in December than economists expected. The agency says 40,000 new jobs were created last month. Economists had expected an increase of just 5,000. The unemployment rate slipped by one-tenth of a percentage point to 7.1%. That compared with expectations of an increase to 7.3%. The better-than-expected results […]
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is spending $177 million to buy a half interest in a Swedish shopping mall, the fund manager’s first real estate investment in the Nordic region of Europe. The Kista Galleria, a mall north of Stockholm’s central business district, has 185 shops and restaurants as well as a cinema, […]
The Supreme Court of Canada says several major public unions are not entitled to a $28-billion pension surplus that the government hived off to help pay down the deficit.
The drive to enrich Canada's main public pension plan took a major step forward Monday with an agreement by federal and provincial ministers to look to ways of enriching the plan once the economy improves.
The Bank of Canada says low interest policies that it and other central banks have put in place are adding another layer of risk to the already stressed global financial system.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives said Monday that taxpayers can no longer afford “gold-plated pension plans” for public sector workers, but the Liberal government called the Opposition’s proposals an American-style attack on the middle class. “We have to address the dramatic unfairness in the system where you have gold-plated pensions for some and no pensions for others,” said Opposition […]
An NDP government would reverse changes to Old Age Security (OAS) by restoring the retirement age to 65 instead of 67, New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair said Friday. Speaking at a town hall meeting sponsored by the seniors’ organization CARP, Mulcair said the NDP would kill the changes within its first year of forming a […]
The House of Commons has unanimously approved changes to the Member of Parliament (MP) pension plan after splitting them off from the government’s big omnibus budget bill. After negotiations, the Commons adopted a motion to whip the changes through with a single motion. The changes will sharply increase the contributions MPs must make to their […]
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty put on his best poker face yesterday as he insisted the Conservative government’s next budget implementation bill wouldn’t contain any unexpected surprises. Flaherty’s second budget bill, to be introduced today, is believed to contain measures to reform MP and public sector pensions, as well as a host of tax changes. But that’s […]
A fight over mandatory retirement for employees of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality is headed to provincial Supreme Court on Monday.