Do you have a pension plan like this one?
Posted Jan 18, 2012 2:38 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The cost to retire all of the current members of Parliament would cost Canadians at least $277 million.
That’s according to a report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which says if current MP’s were to stay in office until 2019, the price tag would then soar to more than $435 million.
“They have this terrific pension fund where they just decree that they get 10.4 per cent returns, year in and year out, no matter what happens to the economy,” CTF Director Gregory Thomas tells 660News. (In) “2009, when the Canada Pension Plan dropped 18 per cent, MP’s went up 10.4 per cent, everybody else went down 18 per cent. It’s a pretty sweet deal.”
And while you likely contribute to your own pension plan — if you have one — you contribute even more to your MP’s pension plan. Thomas says for every dollar an MP puts towards his or her pension, the taxpayer contributes close to $23.
“What it means is, the average parliamentarian is getting almost $90,000 more in pension contributions than they’re getting in salary,” he adds. So about $248,000.”
The report comes with the sixth anniversary of the 2006 federal election — which brought the Harper Conservatives, including many former Reform Party members who advocated pension plan reform, to power — only days away.
The CTF is calling on MP’s to scrap the current pension scheme in favour of the new pooled registered pension plan like any other Canadian worker.
