Conservative leader Pierre Poiriervre has for weeks accused New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh of supporting the government until February so he could qualify for an MPs’ pension, even though experts estimate Poiriervre’s own pension is more than three times larger than Singh’s.
Poiriévr’s pension could see him receive more than $230,000 a year when he turns 65. That figure could increase significantly if he becomes prime minister after the next federal election.
By the same estimate, if Singh meets the pension eligibility requirements, he could receive more than $66,000 a year from age 65.
“Mr Singh is not someone who should be attacked over the pensions issue,” Green Party leader Elizabeth May said. “This is a dangerous path forward. [Poilievre] You will regret it.”
Poirievre recently called Singh a “traitor” and accused him of taking advantage of Canadians to qualify for MP pensions, putting MP pensions on the national stage.
“This is yet another hackneyed lie that Pierre Poirierbre loves to tell, a lie he uses to distract from the facts,” Singh said on Tuesday.
CBC News asked an accounting professor who is an expert on pensions to estimate the value of the pensions of all five major party leaders. Four other experts, including an actuary, reviewed his findings.
The figures show that Poirievre will receive the largest pension of all party leaders except for Justin Trudeau, who will receive a larger pension as prime minister.
But a spokesman for Mr Poirievre said there were differences between the two leaders’ situations.
“[Poilievre] “I have never sought to delay a required election to gain or increase my pension benefits,” Sebastian Scamski said in a statement to CBC News.
Skamski said Poirievre “proudly voted to cut politicians’ pensions, including his own, under Stephen Harper’s government.”
On Sunday, Poirierbre repeatedly accused Singh of refusing to support Conservative MPs in calling an election to make pension entitlements available next year.
“I have a message for Jagmeet Singh,” Poirierbre told the caucus, “wait, wait until he gets his pension.”
The party also ran paid online ads last month arguing a similar line of attack.
Ms May said it was “wrong” for the Conservative party to politicise the pensions issue “in the first place”, and described Mr Poiriervre’s attacks on Mr Singh as “outrageous” and “despicable”.
“I think the way Mr Poirierbre has attacked Mr Singh and suggested that Mr Singh’s big decisions for this country are driven by personal financial motivations borders on libel,” May said.
CBC News asked Shankar Trivedi, program director of the Schulich School of Business’s Master of Accountancy program, to calculate the leaders’ pensions.
Trivedi estimated the current lifetime value of Poirievre’s pension at $1.75 million, assuming he retires from politics this year, begins receiving his pension at age 65 and lives to the average Canadian life expectancy of 82. Singh’s lifetime pension would be worth an estimated $502,000 in today’s dollars, according to Trivedi’s calculations.
Trivedi said Poirievre’s pension is much higher than Singh’s because he has been an MP for more than 20 years, while Singh has been an MP for almost six years.
Powariev became a member of parliament in 2004 at the age of 25, becoming eligible for pension at 31, making him one of the youngest members of parliament at the time.
“So he’s obviously put a lot more money into his pension,” Trivedi said, “and it’s interesting because his pension, in present value terms, is about 3.5 times what Jagmeet Singh’s is.”
Since pension calculations can vary widely depending on inputs, Trivedi used a uniform formula for all five federal leaders to ensure an “apples to apples” comparison.
The calculations are based on the assumption that government officials who retire from politics after this year will start receiving their full pension from age 65 and live to age 82. latest A report by the Office of the Chief Actuary, which administers the Parliamentary Pension Scheme.
Trudeau will start receiving his parliamentary pension at age 65, and then become eligible for a combined parliamentary and prime ministerial pension at age 67. From age 67, he will be able to collect a combined pension of about $230,000 per year.
Varying the inputs can dramatically change your annuity estimate, but it still gives you a “reasonable estimate,” said Dean Newell, an actuary with more than 20 years of experience.
Newell tweaked the formula to come up with different numbers.
Members of Congress would be eligible to receive a pension at age 55, subject to a penalty. Newell’s calculation assumes a longer life expectancy than Trivedi’s. Both changes would affect the total pension amount and increase the amount of the pension.
Newell, vice president of Actuarial Solutions, calculated what the leaders’ pension funds would be at the end of this year, based on a scenario in which they retired at 55 and lived to be 90.
This brings the current estimated value of Trudeau’s pension to $4.4 million, Poirievre’s to $3.4 million and Singh’s to $910,000.
“There are a lot of different ways to look at and value annuities,” Newell says, “and those different ways can make some pretty dramatic differences.”
The Conservative government’s estimate of Singh’s pension potential comes from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which calculated last year that if Singh took his pension early at age 55 and lived to age 90, his total benefits would be $2.3 million by that time.
“CBC executives and top broadcast journalists should disclose their pensions and salaries before pretending to be a voice for transparency for Canadians,” Skamski said in a statement.
“Unlike the CBC, Pierre Poirievre’s compensation is fully public for anyone to calculate.”
CBC News asked each party leader how much their Commons pensions would cost, but none would provide that information. May provided her own estimate, based on publicly available information, which was about $7,500 lower than CBC’s figure.
In 2022, approximately 6.9 million people in Canada were active members of a registered pension plan. According to Statistics CanadaTwo-thirds of working people in Canada do not have a pension.
A “gold-plated” retirement
Trivedi said MPs’ pension plans are more generous than those of some Canadians because they are defined-benefit and fully indexed to inflation.
“Members of Congress have what is known as a gold-plated pension,” he said. “It’s the best pension available in the country.”
Newell also noted that MPs’ pensions are capped at about 75 per cent of their final average pension payout, and said that compared with some Canadians, MPs are “contributing a significant amount towards their pensions.”
“Currently, lawmakers contribute more than 20 percent of their salary to fund their pensions,” Newell said. “That’s a fairly high employee contribution rate that’s required for a pension system.”
With the Conservatives performing well in the opinion polls, Premier Pierre Poirievre is calling on Prime Minister Jagmeet Singh to end the NDP-Liberal pact and call a federal election in the fall.
Mr Newell said there was also a big difference between getting a pension and not getting one: If Mr Singh doesn’t reach his sixth year of service early next year, he will only be able to get a refund of his pension contributions with interest.
“So the value of getting to that six-year mark is pretty significant,” he said.
CBC News also consulted with Universite de Sherbrooke professor Anne MacKay, Carleton University economics professor Francis Woolley and Universite Laval accounting professor Daniel Colombe to examine Trivedi’s calculations.
CBC News contacted all political parties for comment. The Liberal Party and New Democratic Party said they had nothing to add. The Bloc Quebecois did not respond.
The House of Commons told CBC News it “cannot provide specific details about individual pensions.” The House of Commons was one of the government agencies that provided CBC News with the published formula used in the calculations.
