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Women’s Participation in Pension Plans

69.1 Women’s Participation in Pension Plans

Whereas, Disqualifications and omissions in public compulsory pension plans, and the additional restrictions applied to women contributors in private pension plans militate against the achievement of economic security by women in their old age, do not give adequate protection to the family of a female contributor if her income is withdrawn through disability, death or old age, and do not reflect the increasingly important financial role played by women in their families; therefore,

RESOLVED, That the National Council of Women of Canada request the Government of Canada to reconsider the pension plans under public administration to take into account:

  1. The economic role played by women that is outside the recognized labour market and their intending right to a personal security based on that contribution;
  2. The changing pattern of family life which results in an ever-increasing number of families becoming dependent on the financial contribution of the wife and the intending rights of the dependent children of the female contributor to orphans’ benefits under the plan;
  3. The desirability of introducing a greater degree of uniformity of treatment between men and women survivors under the Canada Pension Plan by eradicating reference to the age of the female survivor and replacing it by an income plus dependent children qualification with an absolute right to survivor’s benefit at age 65, regardless of sex;
  4. The absolute necessity of ensuring to everyone, male or female, and regardless of marital status, the right to participate in public pension plans in their own right and the immediate cessation of the practice of arbitrarily depriving survivors of compulsorily accumulated pension benefits due to future marital status;
    and further be it,

RESOLVED, That the National Council of Women of Canada request the Government of Canada to carry on an educational program to impress upon women the importance of providing for their own economic independence; and to take steps to persuade private companies to eliminate differences in pension qualifications for men and women.