Canada: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Reforming State Pension Provision in ‘Liberal’ Anglo-Saxon Countries: Re-Commodification, Cost-Containment or Recalibration?

“…It represented a ‘small scale version of the traditional Swedish design’, with middle and upper level earners supplementing their incomes through private pensions (ibid.). Social policy in Canada has been subject to some retrenchment (Lightman and Riches, 2009: 53); however, as Béland and Myles point out, the pensions model has proved remarkably resilient over the decades. An income test for old age security introduced in 1989 to claw back benefits from higher earners was perhaps the most significant change, but this only affected around 5 per cent of the richest seniors (Béland and Myles, 2005: 259).…”

“…This could be considered a form of cost-containment, albeit a modest one. Later attempts to target OAS payments to poorer families at the expense of the middle classes were shelved in 1998 because the proposals lacked public support (Lightman and Riches, 2009: 53).…”