Let's understand what that statistic is. That isn't the replacement rate of someone with average income in Canada; that's the replacement rate for someone with average income in Canada who's not a member of a workplace pension plan and who never saves a dime their whole life. That's basically what they get from government benefits. It's what they get from old age security, Canada Pension Plan, and the guaranteed income supplement.
That comparison is saying that if we look at just government pensions--if we don't look at private savings and if we don't look at workplace pensions--how does Canada compare to other countries? You're quite right: we compare very well if you're half the average wage. That's the place where Canada is relatively strong; we have a big safety net for low-income workers. At the average wage, we are less than other OECD countries on average, and at the high end we're very low compared to the other OECD countries. But that is just looking at government benefits.
Now, what we would be looking at is a retirement system. We're not trying to assess the adequacy of government benefits. The issue is, when you combine workplace pensions with the government pensions and personal savings, how does the income of retired Canadians compare to that of people elsewhere?
There is a statistic that I find more revealing. The OECD did a study in which they said they would look at the after-tax income of seniors in Canada versus that of working Canadians and adjust for family size to recognize that families need more money because they have more people to support with their family income. The ratio in Canada was 90%, i.e., seniors' after-tax income adjusted for family size was 90% of what it was for working people. In looking at the OECD countries, I think we were third of the 20 or so countries. So the conclusion was that when you looked at all sources of retirement income, our system was doing pretty well.
Again, I'm not advocating complacency. I'm not saying that because it's okay today for people already retired, we can safely assume that it will be okay 20 years from now for people now aged 45. But as far as how the system is doing today is concerned, it stacks up pretty well.