Canadians take retirement savings seriously, census data shows + MORE Sep 16th

It’s the first time the census has probed the question, taking advantage of tax data to correct a picture which experts say has long been distorted by suspect numbers and aggressive investment marketing.

TORONTO _ The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal will be revisiting the issue of whether Air Canada was wrong to force some pilots to retire at age 60.
A decision publicly released on Friday says the tribunal will hold another hearing to determine whether the airline had the right to force 45 pilots to retire at an age it deemed to be the industry standard.
The decision says the case originally had 97 complainants, but 52 of them will not have their retirement age scrutinized by the tribunal.
The issue of retirement age for Air Canada pilots has come up both at the tribunal and in federal court numerous times in the past decade.
Two cases with different complainants, but similar arguments, were ruled upon by the tribunal, reviewed in federal court, then ultimately dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal.
The tribunal says the 52 pilots whose retirement dates were covered by the previous cases will not be included in the new hearing, but says it will hear arguments from the remaining 45 whose retirement dates fall outside of the timeline covered by the other cases…

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal will be revisiting the issue of whether Air Canada was wrong to force some pilots to retire at age 60.

CALGARY — Sue Earl, a 38-year Sears Canada employee, was shocked when she found out she would only initially receive 81 per cent of the value of her pension as part of the company’s insolvency process.
The 64-year-old from Cobourg, Ont., had assumed her defined-benefit pension was “money in the bank,” a guaranteed amount she’d receive in retirement regardless of the financial health of the failing retailer.
But then, she also didn’t think Sears would cancel the severance payments she’d been receiving since her store was closed last year — that’s what happened after it filed for court protection from creditors in June.
READ: Should you do a pension buyback?
She said the other 19 per cent of her defined-benefit pension is “up in the air.”
“Our letter said it would be paid out to us in the next five years, but that depends what they do with it, whether they wind it up or what’s going to happen,” Earl said.
“It’s just one more slap, really…

TORONTO — Two-thirds of households are setting aside money for retirement, taking advantage of either a registered pension plan, an RRSP or a tax-free savings account, Statistics Canada said Wednesday as it released the latest batch of numbers from the 2016 census.
Of 14 million households, 65.2 per cent made a contribution in 2015 — the most recent year for which data was available — to one or more of the three major savings vehicles, an apparent counterpoint to the prevailing narrative that too many Canadians take a cavalier approach to retirement.
Different generations took different approaches: Major income earners aged 35 to 54 were prone to make use of registered pension plans and RRSPs, while those younger than 35 and those older than 54 were more likely to contribute to a TFSA.
READ: Should I add to an RRSP in retirement?
Or, in Statistics Canada’s words: “Participation in savings plans followed strong life-cycle patterns.”
It’s the first time the census has probed the question, taking advantage of tax data to paint a more accurate picture of just how seriously Canadians take it — a picture which experts say has long been distorted by suspect data and aggressive investment marketing…