Canadians are being told that we might learn a lot from pension reforms that took place in Australia starting in 1992. That, for sure, is correct. We can learn that retiring with any real level of financial security is expensive. Employers in Australia must contribute a minimum of 9 percent of an employee’s gross earnings into a privately managed fund and these contributions will rise to 12 percent by 2019-20.

This week, Finance Ministers across Canada met to consider an expansion to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). One specific proposal for reform was that introduced by the PEI Finance Minister back in September. Wes Sheridan outlined the need for an expansion of the CPP and then described in some detail his idea for a “wedged” expansion.

Small and mid-size employers continue to walk away from sponsoring workplace pensions. Today less than 40% of private sector workers have any workplace pension at all and less than 20% have Defined Benefit pensions that experts agree are the best way to guarantee retirement income security.

The tsunami metaphor is more and more often used in commentaries about the effect of aging on health care spending in Canada. It musters up images of devastation and irresistible strength submersing any levees the system might try to mount to oppose it. It is a powerful but misleading metaphor.

In mid-September, the Minister of Finance for Prince Edward Island spoke to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council (APEC) in Charlottetown. In his speech, he outlined the need for expansion of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and then described in some detail his idea for a “wedged” CPP expansion.

Imagine, one day, without any warning, you find yourself in a hospital in a life-threatening situation, unable to communicate. Who would speak for you and make health care decisions on your behalf?

Many papers carried an opinion article by Mark Milke of the Fraser Institute this week. In this article, Milke notes that Canada now has a bifurcated pension world. Public-sector workers have very good Defined Benefit Pension Plans while the majority of private sector workers have no pension at all, and those that do, tend to have Defined Contribution Plans where the worker carries all of the risks (e.g., investment risk, longevity risk).

Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and his provincial counterparts, last December, agreed to consider options for a “modest” expansion of the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans in June 2013. June has come and gone without this meeting.