16 years ago this month, October 2002, I did a Coffeetalk on how leading edge baby boomers that were now in their mid-fifties in would be senior citizens in another decade. I mused that inside of 15 years the retirement age would likely be pushed back from 65 and so would Old Age Pension entitlement. As it turned out, I was almost nearly right, sort of, about OAS, because the previous Conservative federal government did plan to make it 67 over a phased-in period starting in 2023 but the Liberals quashed that when they took power in 2015 even though their own people told them it was the right thing to do to keep it funded far into the future. If I remember correctly, the Liberals under Trudeau were hell bent for leather to overturn a number of things the Harper government was doing or about to do just because….well, just because. As for retirement age, I was only half right. They didn’t just push it back, they eliminated it entirely. Ironically, the federal government was the last jurisdiction to abolish mandatory retirement exactly a decade after 2002. By 2012 the provinces had already determined, wisely, that if a person was still ready, willing and able to work you couldn’t just shove them out the door on their 65th birthday. A 55 year-old in 2002 is now 71. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? Kudos to you if you’re still working. The late George Burns, who lived to 100, said, “Age to me means nothing. I can’t get old. I’m working. As long as you’re working, you stay young”.
That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.