If Premier Kathleen Wynne is going to abandon the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan, it will only be for something that's an awful lot like what the province is proposing.

In a year-end interview with QP Briefing, Wynne said her government will carry on with the “big endeavour” that is the ORPP in 2016. There's little time to spare: The pension plan is supposed to start collecting contributions from large businesses and their workers on Jan. 1, 2017.

The only thing that could put a stop to the ORPP is a Canada Pension Plan boost, but Wynne and her government aren't waiting. Asked what kind of CPP expansion would be enough to halt the ORPP in its tracks, Wynne pointed out the Ontario pension plan will provide the preferred type of benefit and scope the province is looking for.

"There are two things that we've identified," Wynne said. "One is the adequacy of the benefits. So, we've identified in the ORPP the kind of benefit that we want to see. And secondly, (the ORPP is) a targeted program. So, we're looking at people who don't have workplace pension plans, as opposed to across the board. We've determined in all of the work that we've done that that is the best way to go forward right now."

The proposed ORPP is a defined-benefit pension that would collect matching 1.9 per cent contributions from employee and employer on the first $90,000 of earnings. Someone without a comparable pension plan and making $90,000 annually, for example, would receive $12,815 a year from the ORPP.

Tinkering with the benefits or contribution rates of the CPP requires the approval of seven provinces representing two-thirds of the country’s population. Wynne said she couldn’t answer for certain if the support was there for substantial changes to the CPP, because there had never been anything like it on the table. The previous Harper federal government was openly hostile to the ORPP and mandatory CPP expansion, instead proposing a voluntary CPP boost before losing power.

However, Wynne is optimistic there's support for CPP expansion.

“What I can tell you is that the new premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, actually raised CPP enhancement at our last Council of the Federation meeting and has put it back on the agenda from their perspective,” Wynne said. “I think that there are differing views still across the country about what we should do, but I think that there definitely is an interest. There's definitely an understanding that something needs to happen.”

Wynne also said the new federal government and interested provinces are going to gain from her government’s work on retirement security – which could possibly lead to an ORPP-killing Canada Pension Plan expansion.

“I think it's going to be very helpful to finance ministers from across the country to have (Ontario Finance Minister) Charles Sousa at the table with all the work that we've done here in Ontario,” Wynne said. “It will inform the discussion in a way that had we not done that work they'd be starting much more from scratch. I think it's going to be a very fruitful conversation.”

Sousa and his fellow finance ministers were meeting in Ottawa on Monday, and a potential CPP expansion was discussed. Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau has been given the task by the prime minister with getting the ball rolling on a CPP boost, which has always been Ontario’s preference to setting up a provincial pension plan.

But enhancing the Canada Pension Plan won't happen overnight. While waiting for the federal government and the other provinces to come to a consensus, Wynne and the Ontario government are going to proceed with the ORPP.

"It's going to take time for the federal government to work with provinces," Wynne said. "I don't know when that consensus will be reached and so we're going to carry on with the implementation of the ORPP."

To contact the reporter on this story:
gzochodne@qpbriefing.com

Wynne: Ontario Retirement Pension Plan the best path forward – for now

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