Information regarding the Canada Pension Plan is displayed on the Service Canada website in Ottawa in January, 2012.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Lose yourself
Re “Like a bad ex, Donald Trump is accidentally making Canada become its best self” (Opinion, July 25): Reducing interprovincial trade barriers and dairy supply management no doubt would have positive effects on Canada’s bottom line, but would they make for a stronger Canadian society?
The emasculation of the Canadian Wheat Board by the Stephen Harper government put nails into the coffin for the Western family farm; the destruction of supply management would have a similar effect on the family dairy farm. Does supply management actually raise costs, or simply apply costs to the marketplace instead of dispersing them through subsidies and taxation as in the United States?
Society struggles to compensate for the tendency of corporate wealth to travel up to a small proportion of the public, the bosses and the elite. Canada becomes “its best self” by becoming more self-reliant, but it must beware of losing its diverse social spectrum of mutual support and respect based, to a considerable extent, upon the complex structure of its economy.
Nicholas Tracy Fredericton
Plan for pensions
Re “Workplace pension plans have failed most Canadians” (Report on Business, July 22): The problem isn’t that most public sector workers have decent pension vehicles, which they pay into throughout their working lives, it is that the private sector has retreated from a meaningful role in adequate workplace pension sponsorship. These employers spoke against a bigger Canada Pension Plan, arguing that personal savings and expanding workplace pensions would build a strong system for Canadian workers.
Perhaps what is needed is a bigger CPP that provides better pension coverage. This would remove risk from private sector employers, while offering a system for workers to fund decent pensions for their retirement years.
Paul Moist Winnipeg
It is revealing to consider the dramatic differences between pension plans offered in the public sector versus the private sector.
The Canadian government should seek to level the playing field in the interests of all Canadians. It should provide a pension plan tax incentive. For example, give private companies tax breaks for starting new plans and give slightly reduced tax incentives each year they maintain it, up to a maximum number of years.
Brian Strader Oakville, Ont.
Many large Canadian employers have moved to less lucrative defined contribution pension plans over the years, and many smaller companies choose not to offer any plans to their employees.
Employers understandably are concerned about the cost and commitment. For a lot of successful companies, it hasn’t been a priority.
In 2015, the Ontario government proposed a universal pension plan that would require enrolment of all employees in the province not in a workplace pension plan. It wasn’t implemented, but likely contributed to the federal government expanding required contributions to the Canada Pension Plan. This expansion has current costs, but benefits workers in the long run.
But the Ontario proposal is still a great idea. Too many workers will retire without workplace pensions. Current levels of CPP and Old Age Security will leave many Canadians well short of comfortable retirements.
Tony Hooper Toronto
Bigger problem
Re “Chinese EVs are a bundle of security risks in a metal box. Do we really want them?” (Report on Business, July 21): You rightly flag the data security risks of Chinese electric vehicles, which collect and transmit location and personal information.
Yet a key irony goes unmentioned: Canadians already surrender far more intimate data every day through our phones and apps from domestic companies. They can track everywhere we go, what we buy, what we browse, where we park.
Both sources erode our personal privacy. One just feels more foreign.
True privacy protection demands we address surveillance from every source.
Bryan Laskey Cambridge, Ont.
Answers needed
Re “Health Canada did not consult inspectors’ work in review of plasma donor’s death” (July 23): The tragedy of this death is magnified by the remarkable inconsistencies that have been reported.
It defies common sense that a young person would suffer a “temporally coincident” and unrelated “no linkage” cardiac arrest during an invasive procedure, whether or not they had an underlying condition. That known procedural deficits seemingly were not considered adds to the mystery.
Plasma donation is critical and public participation requires confidence in the process. Might I suggest a public inquiry or at least a coroner’s inquest?
D.M.C. Walker MD; professor emeritus, emergency medicine, Queen’s University; Kingston
Work where?
Re “The mental health benefits of going to work” (Editorial, July 21) and “Who are Canada’s big city leavers? Mainly 25 to 44-year-olds, with young children” (Report on Business, July 21): Viable work from home for large numbers of white-collar workers is a recent phenomenon catalyzed by maturing technologies and pandemic lockdowns. It became obvious that, in fact, highly distributed workforces can be productive.
People and families relocate for many reasons. Cost of housing is important, but so are communities seen as more social, interactive and safe than, say, Yonge and King streets in Toronto. Current tensions around management practices reflect older paradigms. We’re learning that many people urbanized for work not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
Generational change is afoot, I suggest. The best and the brightest will have options that were not available during my working years. Successful companies and communities will be so because they recognize change, integrate new approaches and, most importantly, regard flexibility and openness as key attributes.
John Madill Oshawa, Ont.
I found this editorial unintentionally amusing.
The seven years I spent driving across Highway 401 in Ontario was not good for my mental health. I consider long commutes a staggering waste of time and money. And for workers with children, there are extra costs for daycare.
To these factors, we can add the environmental impact of all the cars on all the highways and roads and the accompanying gridlock.
To the point about loneliness: If someone needs people, they can work from a coffee shop or library, or spend time with friends and family when they are not spending time on a hideous commute.
It’s clear to me that being in the office has nothing to do with productivity and everything to do with corporate control. Managers want their workers available to boss around.
If employees are working remotely and being productive, someone might realize managers aren’t actually needed.
Christopher White Hamilton
Have you heard the one…
Re “Dad jokes may be the best jokes we can deploy” (First Person, July 24): This describes well the various good and bad reactions to bad and good jokes.
But the question remains: When is a joke a dad joke?
When it becomes apparent.
Paul Rapoport Hamilton
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