In their April 30 throne speech, the Ontario Conservative government said they would introduce legislation “to allow more seniors to remain active in the workforce—retiring at a time of their own choosing, not an arbitrary, government-appointed time.”
While this a strange way to describe it (there is currently no “arbitrary, government-appointed time” at which anyone is required to retire), we can presume that the government intends to outlaw mandatory retirement, probably by including age over 65 as a prohibited ground for discrimination under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Mandatory retirement age is already prohibited in most other Canadian jurisdictions, including Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba, and the maritime provinces.
The Ontario throne speech was a pre-election platform statement. Since the Ontario Tories have not been known in recent years as great defenders of human rights, this proposal looks like a ploy to win back senior support after the Bill 198 fiasco – when seniors’ opposition forced the Tories to withdraw legislation that would have retroactively transferred pension surpluses from retirees to their former employers.
Banning mandatory retirement is not likely to have a big effect on the age of retirement in Ontario. Most workers would retire earlier, rather than later, if they could afford it. In fact, the average retirement age in Canada has been dropping for years.
Many, perhaps most, workplaces already have no strict mandatory retirement age. A clear retirement age can aid a healthy employee turnover, allowing younger workers to replace older workers, and can permit better planning for retirement, training and other programs.
Ironically, outlawing a mandatory retirement age could have the perverse effect of pushing some workers out even earlier. If they cannot count on a worker leaving at age 65, employers may feel the need to do strict employee performance assessments for older workers and discharge them as soon as they note any drop-off, maybe in their 50’s or early 60’s, to avoid a human rights complaint at age 65 or later.
In spite of the rhetoric of freedom and choice, the key issue for most people considering retirement is their post-retirement income. A lot of people these days who are counting on RRSPs or Defined Contribution pension plans that have been hit by the stock market slump may have to continue working, not by choice, but because they can’t afford to retire.
A real choice would mean that everyone would have a retirement income that allows them to live in dignity and maintain their living standard (at least up to a middle-income level). That would involve either a major upgrade in public pension programs or a substantial extension of private pension coverage, which now includes less than half the workforce. If the Ontario Tories were genuinely interested in expanding retirement choices, they would be putting forward proposals to improve public and private pensions – not to speak of reversing their cutbacks to health care and social services, that have hit seniors the hardest.
In fact, many of the opponents of mandatory retirement see its demise as an opportunity to cut back on pension benefits and other programs for seniors. If more people can be made to work longer, we can reduce the cost of these programs. And if you can force skilled people to work into their 70s, employers can save even more money by putting off training younger workers to take their place.
If the Ontario Tories really want to help seniors, there are a lot more useful things they could do than banning mandatory retirement.
