David Dodge Calls for Pension Reform

. Dodge laid out several scenarios as to how Canadians can pay for escalating health care costs, including paying for it with dedicated health care taxes, reducing services and forcing individuals to pay or simply allowing longer wait times.

“These are stark and unpalatable choices,” he said. “There is no magic solution and we absolutely must have an adult debate about how we are going to deal with this.”

David Dodge is one of the sharpest economic minds in Canada. He knows we can’t dodge the fiscal bullet. He sees the writing on the wall and he is calling for Canadians to save more, but the problem is that for most Canadians, there little room to save more, and anxiety abounds over pension woes.

Is there a way to improve the Canadian pension system? Of course there is, just like there is a way to drastically improve our health care system, but there needs to be a political will for change.

Below, you can watch Mr. Dodge speaking to reporters on health care reform. As he states, “you can’t assume the problem away” on health care (and pensions). You’re either going to pay for it with higher taxes and special levees or pay for it out-of-pocket which has distributional consequences. Mr. Dodge is clear, we need an “adult discussion” on these issues and we need to stop making promises which we can’t deliver. I couldn’t agree more.