Ontario Retirement Pension Plan


The Ontario Retirement Pension Plan was a proposed social insurance program for Ontario, Canada to complement the national Canada Pension Plan. It was intended to cover the 3.5 million workers in Ontario who would not receive a comparable workplace pension after their retirement. Plans to implement the ORPP were cancelled in 2016 following an agreement between the federal government and the provinces to expand the Canada Pension Plan.

Initial framework (2015)

The ORPP was a major plank in the 2014 election platform of the Ontario Liberal Party, and introductory legislation received Royal assent in May 2015.
In August 2015, it was explained that the plan had several specific goals:
  1. It is designed to provide up to 15 per cent of a retiree's pre-retirement income as an annual pension, adding about the same amount as the Canada Pension Plan for those who have contributed to both plans.
  2. Employees and employers would each contribute 1.9 per cent of an employees income up to a maximum of $90,000 of income per year.
  3. Employees who have either an employer-sponsored defined benefit pension plan, or a defined contribution pension plan which requires contributions of at least 8% of pay, will be exempt from participating in the ORPP.
  4. The program may be cancelled if the CPP is enhanced by the federal government
Enrolment in the ORPP had been planned to be staged in four waves:

Introduction of detailed legislation

As required under the 2015 Act, a bill providing greater detail on the operation of the plan was introduced in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on April 14, 2016. It revealed that the ORPP's implementation was to delayed by one year, although final rollout was expected to be completed by 2020.
Among the key points of the plan:

Implications

There was great debate as to the impact and desirability of the proposed plan. Questions were raised as to the motivation behind its creation, suggesting that retirement concerns are less significant than the need to raise funds for the Province's infrastructure plans. Premier Kathleen Wynne admitted that the Province had no idea how much it will cost to run it, while Leader of the Opposition Patrick Brown had promised to abolish the Plan and refund all contributions if the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario won the next provincial election.
Opinions varied widely on the plan. While the chief executive officer of OPTrust has stated that "he ORPP is good public policy," it has also been described as "a cautionary example of what happens when we use blunt tools to address poorly defined problems." The contributions expected to be collected from participants are seen to be relatively small compared to other retirement plans, as one-third of the targeted workforce will make less than $15,000 per annum and almost one-half of these will be under the age of 25. This group was already seen as being adequately covered by the current Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security.
Employers were urged to review the retirement arrangements they have in effect for their employees, as there was a risk that some will not qualify as "comparable workforce pension plans" for the purposes of the ORPP. Defined benefit plans will qualify only where they have an annual benefit accrual rate of at least 0.5 per cent of the member’s annual remuneration, and defined contribution plans must have a minimum contribution rate of 8 per cent of the member’s annual remuneration.
The following areas were identified as being special concerns: