Human Resources Committee on May 7th, 2013

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much, ladies, for being here with us today. You do remarkable work despite sometimes difficult conditions, or perhaps increasingly difficult conditions.

I wanted to start with a short introduction.

Because of neo-liberal ideology on deregulation, and due to some negligence or laisser-faire attitudes, the financial economy has taken precedence over the real economy over the last few years. This intellectual fraud reached its zenith in 2008-2009 during the financial crisis that struck the globe, where stock market players and speculators the world over practically ruined Europe and a large part of the United States. There were effects here as well thanks to our right-leaning friends. The few people who were lucky enough to have a pension plan, whether public or supplemental, saw their hopes of having a decent retirement shattered by speculators because the capitalization rate for pension plans crumbled. For this we can thank those who got rich on the backs of people all over the world.

Today you state that you are providing explanations and reasons why people decide to retire based on 2007 data. These figures predate the 2008-2009 financial crisis. How can you claim that these figures are of any value whatsoever today?

[Sylvie Michaud]

We did a field survey on financial security. That was last fall, in 2012. The results should be available this winter, in other words December 2013 or in early 2014. It will allow us to take stock of the assets and debts of Canadians. The sample size we used was sufficient. We should be able to provide you with information on the matter and present it according to various segments of the population. Unfortunately, the information is not yet available, but we would be pleased to forward it to you as soon as it is.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

What would justify a six- or seven-year wait before this survey can be conducted again, given that this data is essential to our understanding of what is going on in society?

[Sylvie Michaud]

As is the case for all countries, the survey of financial security is not necessarily conducted on a regular basis. There are no international standards as to its frequency. However, in the case of characteristics like assets, all countries conduct one at a frequency varying from every three years to every seven years.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would like to know how many Canadians have supplementary retirement plans, either group RRSPs through their employers or defined contribution or benefit plans.

[Sylvie Michaud]

I should be able to tell you that immediately, but I do not have the figures right here. We do have that information. It is simply that I do not have it here.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would like to obtain it because the Conservative government announced that it was increasing or raising the age of retirement, in other words the age at which people can receive Old Age Security benefits, from 65 to 67. This will force people who have difficult jobs to continue to work at 65 and 66. This is approximately $30,000 the Conservatives will be taking from the pockets of Canadians through this measure, which was announced in Davos in front of the Prime Minister's billionaire friends.

Without any increase to public retirement plans, what do you believe will be the impact of this measure on low-income workers who do not have enough money to contribute to their RRSPs or set money aside for retirement? These two extra years of work are going to have a major impact. The fact that they have been forewarned will not mean that people earning $10 to $12 an hour will have enough to invest in their RRSPs. They are already having a hard time paying off their bills and their debt load is already over 150%.

Have you assessed the impact of raising the age of retirement from 65 to 67, in other words the age at which people will be able to receive OAS payments?

[Sylvie Michaud]

I would have to check to see whether a study has been done on this matter. My group has not done one, but it may have been done elsewhere. I will look into the matter to see if there is any information available.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I would humbly suggest you do so. This is data which I believe would be of great interest to all Canadians.

Do I have much time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

You have about half a minute.

I might say that some of your commentary is hardly useful or helpful to the study. It may be difficult for the witnesses to answer some of those general comments you've made. I think you've pushed the limits on that, for sure.

But you have half a minute. If it's for a commentary, I wouldn't find that particularly useful.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I think it is always relevant to understand the context we are living in and the impact of ideology on the day-to-day lives of people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

If you keep on in that regard, I will rule you out of order, so....

Go ahead.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

In what sectors of activity or professions do people tend to stay longest? In the service sector, in the manufacturing sector? If you want to answer “in the position of senator”, that is not a problem.

[Diane Galarneau]

Managers and professionals tend not to last as long. There are more professions where people decide not to stay as long or decide to some degree to retire at 65. This would be office staff, technologists and professional technicians and managers.

As to industrial sectors where more people expect to retire at 65 or older, it would be 50% of people in professional services and business services. In public administration, consumer services, health care and education, fewer people expect to retire at 65 or older.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that comment.

Mr. Mayes, go ahead.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll try to get back on track.

Thank you very much for being here today.

We had a professor from the University of Ottawa at the last meeting who said that we need to change the way we look at the demographics of population and age. I suggested that we had the gospel of Freedom 55. That was the ultimate. If you could retire at 55, that was just great. But actually, retirement is not just great at 65, because you can have productive years after.

What I'm getting at is this: when you do your stats, it says “age 55 and older”, as if 56 is older. I wonder if we should start changing those terms to reflect the health of the people. Often, younger people don't start careers or really get their act together until they're in their thirties. So that is something I think we need to do as a society. It affects StatsCan, too, because you do your surveys based on those sorts of bases. I think that our terminology should change. Maybe we should talk about our “mature” workers instead of “older” workers. Of course, you might think I'm reflecting on this because I'm an older person, but I feel that I still have many productive years left.

This is something we have a problem with. We hear all the time that eligibility for different benefits is being lowered. But we're offering those benefits at a different time in life, even though they're still as healthy as they were 20 years ago, when they were eligible for those benefits.

First, have you ever looked at starting at 62 to 72? You could call those older workers and see what's happening with that group, rather than dipping into the 55 to 62. I wonder if there would be a significant difference in your outcomes if you compared that. That's one question.

Second, this is not just a Canadian challenge; it's also in Europe and the United States. Have you looked at any of the statistics coming out of other countries and compared them to see how they're managing to allow mature workers to stay in the workforce?

Finally, as to the mature workers, do you find that they are just wanting to stay and work in their career paths and that they've upgraded their training or skills so they can continue, or do you find that the older workers are leaving their career paths and going into a new career where they have to be retrained?

There are a lot of questions there.

[Tracey Leesti]

I'll start with the first one on the terms “older” and “mature” workers. I agree. I don't like the term, “older workers”. We've had discussions among ourselves, but it was the term that stuck. The reason we put it as “55-plus” when we're presenting it, is that we sometimes want to dig down a little deeper into the data. As you go past 65, 70, the population itself gets a little smaller. It gets a little harder to disaggregate the data, so we tend to group it up to 55-plus. It is possible to look at it beyond 55. You can disaggregate it. It's just that when you try to break it down you might have to look at industry and occupation, and see whether you have enough data to provide statistics. It is possible to break it down further. We can do it in special studies. We just tend to aggregate it up for dissemination purposes.

There was a comment—and this referred to an earlier question—about focusing a little more on older workers and shifts. With the labour force survey, we tend to ask all respondents. But at age 70, if they indicate that they're not working, for the purposes of response burden—we go back to them six times—we don't re-ask the questions. We're coming up to a redesign point in 2015-16 where we look at the survey in general, and one part we look at is the content. So it is something we're looking at. We recognize with the demographic shift and the growth in older workers, particularly females, that it might be something we want to focus on a little bit more in considering whether to raise the age limit. It's just that we have to look at the proportions that we're dealing with. If we're still dealing with about 2% of the population, when you disaggregate it, we might not have enough.

All that to say, it is definitely on our radar and it is something we're looking at in our redesign. It is something you can work with now. We just aggregate it that way for dissemination purposes.

[Sylvie Michaud]

In terms of trajectories and transition to retirement, to measure those kinds of studies you really need a longitudinal survey. A number of countries have created longitudinal surveys on aging, and retirement specifically.

A new longitudinal survey was launched two years ago, called LISA, the longitudinal and international study of adults. It had a collection last year, and the results should be released in the fall of 2013. In that one, because we had asked respondents for their permission to use some administrative records...already in the first wave of information we'll be able to go back in time and try to see who had employment income, maybe who stopped and started again, and we'll try to see where they are now. It may not give us a full picture, but it will start to highlight some of the questions you're asking about the information.

We had a predecessor in the survey of labour and income dynamics, and I can try to see if we can provide you with a bit of information on trends—not reasons, but trends. Maybe I can look at something, and with LISA we should also be able to provide you with information.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

From the time of retirement until a person leaves this planet, if a person retires early, what is their life expectancy compared to a person who works later in life? That would be an interesting statistic to me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Does anyone wish to respond to that?

Go ahead.

[Diane Galarneau]

We have looked at the number of years of retirement, because life expectancy has increased. We've found that most of the increase in life expectancy is spent in the labour market. Since 1996, the number of years of retirement has actually remained stable over time.

But if you compare the proportion of the total life expectancy at age 50, it's actually decreasing. Proportionately, you spend less time in retirement than in 1996, for example. The proportion is almost equal to that of 1976. This is all in the reference. People are postponing their retirement, and they spend a lot more time in the labour market now than in 1996.

Actually, in 1996 it was probably uncommon. It was a mistake, because over time, when you look at the trend, people did stay longer in the labour market, so now we are just back to where we were in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you for that comment.

We'll now move to Mr. Cuzner. Go ahead.

[Rodger Cuzner, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Thanks very much.

I'm looking forward to a big finish here.

The information requested by Mr. Boulerice would be helpful. I'd appreciate looking at that information as well.

Do you glean specific numbers on persons with disabilities, as far as their attachment to the workforce? Did you measure that, and are we able to see that?

[Diane Galarneau]

We did measure the impact of layoffs, for example, because we looked at those who retired voluntarily or quasi-voluntarily. We know now that at age 50, people voluntarily spend another 16.3 years in the workforce.

But if they are laid off—I don't remember exactly the number of years they lose, but if you add what you would lose if you have poor health, or if you lose your job, or because you have to take care of a family member, you lose 1.8 to 2 years. A study we released last fall was on the impact of involuntary retirement on health problems.