Canadian small businesses ‘breathing easier” as finance ministers pause CPP expansion
by Canadian Manufacturing.com Staff
CFIB says move would do sizable damage to economy, slow job growth
TORONTO—Following talks between Canada’s provincial finance ministers and their federal counterpart, Bill Morneau, earlier this week, small and medium-sized businesses across the country are breathing “a bit easier.”
According to Canadian Federation of Independent Business president, Dan Kelly, small business owners should be relieved by the announcement.
“Revisiting a bad idea over and over is not going to suddenly make it a good idea,” Kelly said. “While small firms can take some comfort that finance ministers did not jeopardize the fragile economy by signing onto a giant payroll tax hike, the threat remains. This idea needs to be taken off the table for good.”
Though they reached no conclusion earlier this week, the country’s finance chiefs agreed to revisit the topic midway through 2016.
The CFIB is fervently against any move to raise CPP and Quebec Pension Plan premiums, which would force business owners and workers to pay more into the program. The organization maintains doing so would cause “sizable” damage to the economy over the next seven years. According to econometric modeling carried out by the CFIB and researchers at the University of Toronto, an Ontario-style expansion to CPP/QPP would slow job growth by as many as 110,000 positions by 2020 and swell combined federal and provincial deficits by approximately $10 billion.
“It is high time to change the retirement savings channel and focus on fully implementing voluntary Pooled Registered Pension Plans (PRPPs) in all provinces, as has happened in Quebec,” Kelly said.
