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Ontario Pension Policy Making and the Politics of CPP Reform, 1963–2016

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 November 2019

Benjamin Christensen Open the ORCID record for Benjamin Christensen [Opens in a new window]
Benjamin Christensen*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Douglas College, 700 Royal Avenue, New Westminster, BC, V3M 5Z5
*
*Corresponding author Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

After years of pension policy drift in a broader context of global austerity, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) was enhanced for the first time in 2016 to expand benefits for Canadian workers. This article examines Ontario's central role in these reforms. The deteriorating condition of workplace plans, coupled with rising retirement income insecurity across the province's labour force, generated new sources of negative feedback at the provincial level, fuelling Ontario's campaign for CPP reform beginning in the late 2000s. The political limits of policy drift and layering at the provincial level is considered in relationship to policy making at the national level. As shown, a new period of pension politics emerged in Canada after 2009, in which the historical legacy of CPP's joint governance structure led to a dynamic of “collusive benchmarking,” shaped in large part by political efforts of the Ontario government, leading to CPP enhancement.

Résumé

Résumé

Après des années d'inaction politique, dans un contexte plus large d'austérité mondiale, le Régime de pensions du Canada (RPC) a été bonifié pour la première fois en 2016 pour améliorer les prestations des travailleurs canadiens. Le présent article examine le rôle central de l'Ontario dans l'avènement de ces réformes. La détérioration de l'état des régimes de retraite en milieu de travail, conjuguée à l'insécurité croissante du revenu de retraite dans l'ensemble de la population active de la province, a généré de nouvelles sources de rétroaction négative au niveau provincial, alimentant la campagne de l'Ontario en faveur de la réforme du RPC qui a débuté vers la fin des années 2000. Les limites de la politique «d'inaction » et de l'étagement des politiques au niveau provincial sont examinées en relation avec l'élaboration des politiques au niveau national. Comme indiqué, une nouvelle période de politique des régimes de retraite est apparue au Canada après 2009, au cours de laquelle l'héritage historique de la structure de gouvernance conjointe du RPC a donné lieu à une dynamique de « référenciation collusoire », façonnée en grande partie par les efforts politiques du gouvernement de l'Ontario conduisant à une amélioration du RPC.

Keywords

pension policypension politicsCanada Pension PlanOntario politicspolicy makingriskpolitique des régimes de retraiteRégime de pensions du Canadapolitique ontariennepolitique publiquerisque
Type
Research Article/Étude originale
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2019

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