A Tipping Point in the CPP Expansion Debate?

Surprise and initial disbelief was my reaction upon reading the headline "Canadians should be allowed to contribute more to CPP to ‘reignite a culture of savings,’ urges CIBC chief" yesterday in the Financial Post. But it's true - the head of one of Canada's banks has come out in support of an idea that has been portrayed by some as the stupid notion of an ill-advised anti-business left-wing labour movement but which actually makes a lot of sense (as I have blogged about comparing CPP to RRSPs and the like, in relation to retirees' needs, comparing to the proposed PRPPs). It is quite significant when a major bank head publicly expresses support. After all the banks make a lot of profit from RRSPs, mutual funds and would do so from PRPPs that are the private sector alternative to CPP. So kudos to CIBC and CEO Gerry McCaughey for saying something that may not be in their narrow best interest but which is good for Canada and average Canadians.

A fine but critical point of potential disagreement with what McCaughey said is that the voluntary participation in the expanded CPP should be made the default option i.e. people should be automatically included though they could opt out if they deliberately chose to leave it. That way, just about everyone would be in it. To offer participation as a voluntary opt in, where you have to take action to join, would be next to useless as too few people would join. People need a Nudge as Thaler and Sunstein tell us in the eponymous book.

Disclosure: I own bank shares directly and in ETFs (and so does just about every Canadian in their equity mutual funds or ETFs) and I will be getting CPP, though not any expanded benefits if it is expanded on a pre-funded basis as I believe it should be done.

"Something Will Work Out" Retirement Planning

Benefits Canada reports in Retirement income adequacy still a problem for pension plan members some scary results of a survey of pension plan members by pension consultants Towers Watson. That people "just aren't getting it" and not even using such retirement tools as employers make available and just hoping and trusting that "something will work out" for retirement doesn't augur well for the future. The article also notes the continuing shift from Defined Benefit pension plans to Defined Contribution retirement savings plans, which places more onus on the individual to both save enough and to invest wisely. Towers Watson goes on from these to talk of other warning signs. Is all this likely to work out well?

Meanwhile, the progress (recently tabled federal legislation) on the federal government retirement solution for the private sector, the DC-type Pooled Retirement Pension Plan, is revealing some interesting features of the PRPPs. The banks and insurance companies are apparently objecting to established pension plans like OMERS trying to get in on the action claiming that OMERS has unfair advantages on costs and regulation. Hmm, so now we see an admission that PRPPs run by banks cannot and will not do as good a job (costs, planning assistance etc) as traditional DB pension plans run by purpose-built organizations for public servants. Is there something wrong here?

Pooled Retirement Pension Plan Draft Legislation Revealed - Will PRPP Help?

Last Thursday November 17th, the Federal government announced and tabled draft legislation (Bill C-25) for creating Pooled Registered Pension Plans.

Will this help the target group - people who have no company pension and are not voluntarily saving through RRSPs or TFSAs? The answer is a mild "yes" in absolute terms and a resounding "no" in relative terms.

Yes, it does help somewhat.

• Anything is better than nothing - The most critical problem is that those people right now are not saving for retirement, so any program that gets them to save will help. Despite the provisions of the PRPP legislation that do not require companies to opt in and that allow individuals to opt out, the default auto-enrollment rule (par.39(1)), the default investment option rule (par. 23(3)) and a default contribution rate (par.45(1)) will be quite effective in getting more people to save. "Nudge" works.
• Cost and fees have a fair chance to be less than for mutual fund RRSPs - Why might there be a grain of truth to the confident assertion by Minister Menzies who told the Globe and Mail, subsequent to receiving financial industry assurances, that management fees will be "substantially less" than they are for RRSPs? 1) Money will be locked into the PRPP unlike the RRSP. You may be able to switch between funds but the fact that the investment management company knows the money will not be withdrawn means less need for cash balances and less urgency for short-term return-chasing by funds that undermine returns. 2) Marketing costs, which are embedded into management fees could well be less since the target market for the financial industry is not the individual consumer but small and medium-size companies. That should mean no glitzy TV ads. There will be no trailer fees to salespeople (aka financial advisors); in fact, the draft bill specifically bans kickbacks by fund companies to employer sponsors (par.33). 3) The regulatory structure should help to control the most egregious overcharging. Good 'ole politics might even have a bearing since the Governor in Council, i.e. the government, gives itself the power to decide what "low cost" fees means (par.76 (1) (j)).

No, the PRPP will NOT help, it may even do harm.

• NoHype Investing author Gail Bebee emailed me her comments, which I think are spot on, so I'll simply reproduce them with my highlighting):
  

  "1. Employers are not required to offer this, or any other, employer-sponsored pension plan.

  2. Employees will be able to opt out at will.

  3. The financial industry, the same folks who charge Canadians some of the highest mutual fund fees in the world, will be managing the pension funds and will have a major say on the fees charged to do so.

  4. More government bureaucracy will be set up to regulate this new program.

  5. RRSPs already offer a similar retirement savings option. The issue is that not enough Canadians participate."

• Wealthy Boomer Jonathan Chevreau's comments in the Financial Post gave some nuance to Gail's points.
• The PRPP will complicate and confuse - The retirement landscape is already tough enough to understand, what with RRSPs, Defined Contribution and Defined Benefit Pension plans and TFSAs. Another layer of complexity is added. How will people make intelligent informed decisions about which to choose under what circumstances? There is no advice-giving component included in the PRPP structure. Blogger Preet Banerjee was right on the mark pointing this out in a CBC article on the announcement. With each province being required to implement its own complimentary legislation, it's a sure thing Canada will add another patchwork of permutations and combinations in rules, all of it totally unnecessary. What will happen when people move to different jobs in different provinces or with different companies? The minister says the plans are portable and transferable but sure as to betsy a lot of folks will end up with several plans. I already have two different LIRAs that cannot be combined (one is federal, the other provincial) on top of an RRSP and a TFSA. Another possibility to add?! Gimme a break!
• Low pay workers will likely get scr***d - Tax-wise, the logic of the PRPP will work the same as an RRSP. In a couple of posts here and here on the HowToInvestOnline blog comparing the TFSA and the RRSP for retirement savings, it is quite clear that anyone earning less than $37,000 is better off using a TFSA. If such workers get auto-enrolled into the PRPP and they don't opt out (who is to tell them to opt out except for lowly bloggers that they never read anyway?), they will be appreciably worse off in retirement. Thanks for your help, government!
  
• PRPPs pale in comparison to the CPP - The much debated alternative solution, that of expanding the CPP, as we have previously argued here and here, meets the criteria of what is needed much better. Over at Moneyville, author and pension expert Moshe Milevsky points out that the Pooled Retirement Pension Plan doesn't even live up to its name. It doesn't provide a pension - a lifetime of secure guaranteed income - at all, it is only a savings and investment plan that will go up and down with stock and bond markets.
  

Later addition: Commenter Leo's new blog PRPP Canada devoted to PRPP (the blog's mere existence is a sign of the additional complexity Canadians are soon to face) contains a link to lawyers McCarthy Tétrault's review of some of the ins and outs of C-25. From what McCarthy says, the law won't require that there be a default option if the PRPP offers a menu of investment (aka fund) choices that a "reasonable and prudent" person could use to assemble a retirement savings portfolio. That's one less small but critical nudge.