Ontario considers creating its own public pension plan + MORE Oct 16th

The new rules for drawing Canada Pension Plan (CPP) benefits while continuing to work are a source of confusion for a number of people. In the past, once you started receiving CPP benefits, you were no longer required to continue making CPP contributions. With the new changes in 2012, it is possible to be drawing a pension and contributing to the plan at the same time. Your reward for making contributions is the Post-Retirement Benefit.
Contributing to CPP after Age 60
If you are between the ages of 60 and 64 and working and are drawing CPP, you must continue to make contributions to the plan on the same basis as anyone else. Your employer will continue to match your contributions. Once you reach the age of 65, you can continue to make contributions to CPP voluntarily. After age 70, you are no longer required to make contributions to CPP.
Post-Retirement CPP Benefit
If you chose to contribute to CPP while collecting the pension, your Post-Retirement CPP benefit will be added to your regular payment the year after you make the extra contributions…

Escapology is a quite different way of looking at financial independence (aka “Findependence”) than we normally cover in this blog and the magazine. If you’ve not heard the term before, welcome to the club. A tip of the hat to fee-for-service planner Fred Kirby for alerting me to the existence of a recently launched print magazine called the New Escapologist.
As far as I can tell from a quick read of the ninth installment, titled Take the Money and Run, Escapology is a kind of very extreme early retirement worldview that puts the focus on freedom rather than material possessions and the myriad of costly services most of us regard as a necessity in this gadget-crazy 21st century (i.e. wireless access, cable TV, smartphones and social media, subscriptions to movie services and magazines and all those other services provided by businesses such as my employer, Rogers).
A definition:
But let’s let the magazine speak for itself:
What is Escapology? It’s about deftly avoiding the potential traps of modern life: debt, stress, unrewarding work, bureaucracy, marketing, noise and over-government…

One retirement planning rule of thumb aims to ensure your savings last longer than you do. But does the rule work?

You or I may never manage a portfolio as massive as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s (CPPIB) 188 billion in assets but we can learn a thing or two on how to invest our own money from the manner in which the CPPIB invests our surplus Canada Pension Plan contributions. Here are some highlights from the CPPIB 2013 Annual Report (available both online and in PDF formats).
Highly Diversified
The CPP Fund is invested in a three main asset classes — 50 percent in Canadian and Global public and private equity markets, 33 percent in fixed income and the rest in real assets like real estate and infrastructure. Retail investors may have the resources to invest profitably in private markets but we can capture broad market exposure to the main asset classes through mutual funds and direct holdings in stocks, bonds and real estate securities.
Equity Orientation
In as little as eight years, the Canada Pension Plan will start tapping into the CPP Fund to cover the shortfall between contributions and benefit payments…

Ontario is considering creating its own public pension plan if the federal government fails to enhance Canada Pension Plan payouts in future, suggest separate reports in the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Wednesday. The plan would be funded by employers and employees but managed by the provincial government.
The provinces and Ottawa are set to meet in the coming weeks to discuss strategies to address the pension conundrum in Canada. Only one-third of the Canadian work force is currently covered by a registered pension plan and younger workers risk serious savings shortfalls as private pension plans become more rare in modern workplaces and life expectancies rise.
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