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1. Status quo defined benefit pension plans for government sector employees are akin to a blank cheque

   Appeared in the Financial Post and Calgary Herald Since the turn of the millennium, the ever-increasing cost to taxpayers of government sector pension plans has been made evident time and again. Contribution rates have been hiked, often doubling in one ...

2. Alberta government unions and the Easter Bunny

   Appeared in the Calgary Herald Now that the province has reaffirmed its intent to lightly modify government employee pension plans, government unions will again try to divert the public from the facts. For example, after my recent column on the ever ...

3. Kicking Alberta's unfunded pension liabilities down the road

   Appeared in the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald One theory about politics is that because politicians must get votes to stay in power that's their currency they are unlikely to act against their own self-interest. So politicians cater to the ...

4. How not to reform government pensions

   Appeared in the Vancouver Sun Imagine if governments engaged in a massive spending binge over the last decade, with the benefits falling to just a small part of the population and then hiked taxes four times to pay for it. Now imagine if they argued, in ...

5. Controlling soaring public sector pension costs: Lessons from the Saskatchewan NDP

   Appeared in the National Post, Calgary Herald, Winnipeg Free Press, Victoria Times Colonist, and Okanagan Sunday Canadians routinely hear about alleged growing divides in Canadian society. But here is one rift that often goes unmentioned: the divide ...

6. Public-sector pensions: options for reform from the Saskatchewan NDP

   In 2011, just over six million Canadians were enrolled in some type of registered pension plan (RPP). In the public sector, 87.1 per cent of employees were covered by an RPP, up from 75.5 per cent in 1978. In the private sector, just 24.4 per cent of ...