Securing the Future
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Securing the Future
Results of April 2010 Survey on SMEs’ Views of the Retirement System in Canada
It is important to understand the critical role that SMEs play as employers and as contributors to Canada’s economy when talking about reforming Canada’s retirement system. All too often, the unique characteristics and needs of small businesses are forgotten when formulating retirement policy, leading to skewed policy prescriptions that can have a significant negative impact on small businesses. In fact, small business owners are often accused of offering insufficient retirement benefits to their employees, triggering policy discussions on how to make SMEs offer retirement benefits similar to those in the corporate or public sectors. Very rarely, if ever, is the question asked: why are small businesses unable to offer retirement plans to their employees?
Given the competitive nature of the labour market and the difficulty small businesses already have hiring and retaining qualified labour, there is a clear incentive for small businesses to offer retirement plans. What, then, is preventing them from doing so? In order to better understand SME involvement with the Canadian retirement system, CFIB surveyed small business owners across the country, seeking answers to some of these questions, and to provide input into the debate on how best to reform Canada’s retirement income system. The survey received a total of 7,872 respondents, and is accurate to within 1.1 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
