TORONTO — The “rock solid” position of the Canada Pension Plan is one reason why expansion of the plan has been a hot topic in discussions on how to solve Canada’s looming pension crisis, the head of the plan’s investment board said Thursday.
Expanding the CPP has been bandied about as a potential solution to the pension crisis being faced by Canadian ever since many began experiencing a sharp drop in the value of their retirement investments with the advent of the economic downturn in 2008.
“Of all the elements of the pension system in Canada that people have looked at in this pension reform debate, everyone keeps coming back and concluding that the Canada Pension Plan is doing what it was intended to do,” said David Denison, president and CEO of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
“This is the rock solid pillar in that system,” Denison said in an interview.
In the aftermath of the financial crisis, governments and the business world are struggling for solutions to a longer-term demographic trend. As Canada’s workforce ages dramatically and baby boomers retire in droves, there will be fewer workers to pay into the fund, while more retirees will draw from it.