Every worker has the right to live in dignity after they retire from working life. Canada’s pension system is set up to combine workplace pension plans with the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS), and Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) in supporting Canadians after they have retired from working life. Together, this system has made a profound impact on the diminishment of senior poverty rates in Canada.

This is why our labour movement has consistently fought to expand retirement supports like the CPP, as well as to protect and extend workplace pension plans to more workers.

But far too many workers lack workplace pension plans:

– Fewer than 40% of Canadian workers have access to a workplace pension plan. In the private sector, that number drops to less than 25%, and for workers under 29, top just 13%.

– Today, even workers with a workplace pension plan or alternative savings are vulnerable to financial insecurity in retirement. Fewer employers are offering workplace pensions and more workplace pensions are seeing reduced benefits.

You can find out more about different pension and savings options, like:

• The Canada Pension Plan
• Old Age Security (OAS) and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS)
• Workplace pension plans – also see your union Collective Agreement
• Registered retirement and other private saving options

At the following government resource sites:

• Government of Manitoba – Office of the Superintendent – Pension Commission
• Government of Canada – info on public pensions
• Government of Canada – Canada Pension Plan
• Government of Canada – Old Age Security
• Government of Canada – Guaranteed Income Supplement