Not the time to bolster Canada Pension Plan: federal-provincial ministers

OTTAWA – The country’s finance ministers aren’t going to sweeten the Canada Pension Plan any time soon.

Kevin Sorenson, federal minister of state for finance, says the matter needs more study but now is not the time to raise payroll taxes to pay for higher pensions.

Sorenson was filling in for a raspy-voiced federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty at the end of a meeting with provincial and territorial ministers.

Flaherty says it will take years for the economy to shake off the effects of the recession.

There might be room in the future to improve the national pension plan, he says, although he wouldn’t hazard a guess about when that might happen.

Sorenson says higher pension premiums would mean lost income and lost jobs.