Contribution rates (i.e., payroll taxes) have only gone up while the plan's bloated investment arm repeatedly misses its benchmarks

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In 2026, for the eighth year in a row, Ottawa is whacking workers with a Canada Pension Plan tax hike. For someone earning $85,000, the combined worker and employer CPP tax in 2026 is $9,292.90, including the government’s new “CPP2,” which was imposed beginning in 2024. That’s an annual tax increase of 4.9 per cent, more than double the current inflation rate of 2.2 per cent. At $85,000 annual earnings, the cumulative tax hike over eight years is 79.1 per cent in nominal terms, or about 42.1 per cent after accounting for inflation.

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The government calls its tax hike “the CPP enhancement” and back in 2017 justified it by saying it helps Canadians “meaningfully reduce the risk of not saving enough for retirement.” But by paying a higher CPP tax, workers today are not actually saving more for their retirements. They are paying for benefits to retirees today, with the expectation that when they retire they will receive benefits funded by CPP taxes on........

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