True Patriot Love - Should Canada Raise the Retirement Age to 70？

00:00:00.000 If you're going to have a trade shortage, if you're going to have a skilled labor shortage

00:00:03.520 in the country, and most of those people at the top end are the people that fill those jobs and

00:00:08.080 they're about to retire at 65, you don't want to give them the opportunity to retire if you're

00:00:12.560 going to try to get these projects off the ground. You want to move them through another five years,

00:00:17.200 hopefully to retrain a bunch of people or immigrate a bunch of people to take those

00:00:20.640 projects. So quite frankly, that's the conundrum they're in.

00:00:23.280 hi thanks for joining us here's a question in an aging society here in canada are we looking

00:00:34.240 forward to a tougher future than we ever have in our retirement years in canada to talk more about

00:00:39.440 that joining me paul micucci often by the numbers uh to help us unravel this thanks paul yeah big

00:00:45.120 issue mike and this has been a controversial topic in canada for quite a while you if you remember

00:00:51.040 back to 2012 um the government decided they were going to increase the retirement age so from 65

00:00:58.480 to 67 and it started they started down the road and they said it was going to save the country

00:01:04.640 about seven billion dollars a year significant a significant and the world trend is just that so

00:01:12.240 you know we'll go through it in a minute but country by country when we did the analysis for

00:01:16.240 the show and we got ready for the show lots of countries have already started increasing the

00:01:21.360 retirement age you know and phasing it in over time not doing it all at once so we started we

00:01:27.280 started down this road and then all of a sudden it was like time out uh the seniors in canada said

00:01:33.200 it's essential you know they're going to lose 17 000 a year between 15 and 17 000 yeah yeah a bunch

00:01:39.920 of uh seniors were protesting say they were on the borderline this was going to cause them you know

00:01:45.120 to have financial difficulties so uh prime minister trudeau at the time uh reversed the decision so

00:01:52.640 by the time 2015-16 happened budgets came they reversed the decision and his comment was uh a

00:02:00.480 very this is a very simplistic solution to a very complex situation so in other words i'm not going

00:02:06.720 to touch this i'm going back to 65. but but mike we have to think that's the vote those are the

00:02:12.800 voters that so revered uh the liberals at the time oh yeah you wouldn't want to be out there

00:02:18.560 at that moment certainly what you might recall those are very close moment uh in that election

00:02:24.320 to have alienated the aging population the retirement group uh and seniors in general

00:02:30.240 i think would have been a tough move and the blowback i think you're right by the way we've

00:02:34.560 been doing it 65 has been the uh age the official age uh since 1970 yeah so we've been we've carried

00:02:42.720 this a long time oh yeah we have we have and and with the interesting part uh if you look you know

00:02:49.280 the different components of payments to seniors are uh the cpp the canadian pension plan right

00:02:55.360 old age security right and the guaranteed income supplement so gis yeah right so those are all the

00:03:02.320 things that go into payments to seniors and if we've done on budget shows in the past they've

00:03:07.120 been going up that's the one thing that gets ratcheted up in every budget for the term of the

00:03:11.840 the budget, every year you see, you know, a 7%, 8% increase in the amount that's being paid to

00:03:19.400 seniors' benefits. A very quick favor before we continue. A large percentage of you who watch or

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00:03:45.640 just five seconds cost nothing keeps you informed so thank you now back to the show so that if you

00:03:53.240 think about it those are the numbers seniors watch those numbers very carefully you know if you told

00:03:58.280 my dad oh you know we're going to take six percent off or we're going to hold it at zero he knows

00:04:05.560 instinctively over the last through the term of his retirement what's been coming

00:04:10.200 it would cause a stir in his life i or certainly in his spirit toward the government oh yeah well

00:04:16.360 well of course and now as we're seeing this whole aging population this this uh phase where we're

00:04:24.680 seeing more canadians going into the 65 plus category the baby boomers that are going into that

00:04:30.600 60 by plus category we're starting to see one in every four canadians being a senior

00:04:36.600 and we're seeing birth rates go down so now you have this interesting problem where

00:04:41.440 immigration is decreasing we have the workforce is decreasing all of a sudden we're looking at

00:04:48.640 it and saying okay now we have to pay these benefits and we did have you know from i'm

00:04:53.380 going to talk about the cpp the pension fund for a minute we do have a very robust fairly large

00:04:59.820 pension fund that actually you know is growing up to or will grow up to a trillion dollars at

00:05:04.860 some point it's 800 billion dollars now plus approximately what are they they're guesstimating

00:05:10.540 by 2050 it'll be at two two trillion something like that point nine trillion almost three trillion

00:05:15.980 yeah almost three trillion so but that you know listen so you know i'm going to put a little bit

00:05:20.220 of condition i always kind of put some conditions okay the caveat here it comes so that is an

00:05:24.940 actuarial estimate based on the contribution staying stable right so and a lot of those

00:05:32.780 contributions when we dug into it and you're the one who kind of flagged it for me at some point

00:05:38.300 cpp because of its size is going to depend heavily on its investment income to supplement the cpp

00:05:46.460 payment by 2032 that same actuary estimates that we will have 48 to 50 percent of that cpp fund

00:05:55.900 will be based on investments not based on contributions right so if the world still is

00:06:01.980 paying huge returns okay fantastic that can happen if the if the world isn't paying huge returns

00:06:09.180 so we did this in the budget show and we took a look at where you know the pension plan the

00:06:14.380 The Canadian pension plan spends a lot or invests a lot of their money.

00:06:17.880 And, you know, it was very transparent.

00:06:19.820 They say, listen, we invest 47% of our assets in the United States, 13% in Canada and the rest around the world.

00:06:29.600 And they get, you know, good returns for what they do at the current time.

00:06:34.100 The stock market's been booming.

00:06:35.600 They've been hitting it.

00:06:37.360 so you know you hope that quite frankly that the investment category of the pension fund keeps

00:06:44.120 growing to compensate for the contribution loss yeah that is currently happening due to a shrinking

00:06:50.560 population and an aging population and a lower workforce and a lower number of jobs so really

00:06:56.420 that's where we're at so it's all dependent you know there's a lot of factors in that sentence

00:07:00.520 so where do we invest where are we getting that where are those investments Paul

00:07:03.780 uh well you know this is so you know you and i've talked about we've got 27 major projects

00:07:12.520 yeah and so the the thing that confuses me when we have this conversation already why aren't we

00:07:18.520 starting to turn those investments back into our own country to spear to spearhead our own projects

00:07:24.000 to keep our employment growing and our growth and our productivity so to keep them yeah you know so

00:07:30.640 rather than investing to keep productivity and growth in another country going higher than ours

00:07:36.660 so you know we've we've fallen out of here we go so basically we've fallen out of the oedc the

00:07:43.060 developed nations category of the 32 developed nations with respect to productivity per capita

00:07:48.080 okay we know that we've talked about it but yet we're not forcing our own pension fund to turn

00:07:54.020 back and spearhead projects back in the country that makes no sense it's very really it never did

00:08:00.040 it's very disturbing and and so much foreign investments coming into these projects a lot of

00:08:04.600 it u.s and and already cpp their investment portfolio at the moment is primarily u.s investments

00:08:11.640 oh yeah um you know it's interesting because uh oh churchill falls which i was down on the east

00:08:19.560 coast it was funny because a buddy of mine was in from uh st john's on the weekend and we were

00:08:25.000 having dinner with another friend and churchill falls and the fact that i was down there at the

00:08:30.360 same time when churchill falls was announced um and we were having a discussion and that's

00:08:35.320 gone forward so since that time it's actually the it's progressed paperwork has been starting to be

00:08:40.520 signed um and i said how much contribution does canada made into churchill falls hydroelectric

00:08:46.360 um and he he looked you know he searched around he said uh there's an option for 10 percent

00:08:55.000 i'm like 10 so the government only took 10 for all that investment exactly so again case in point

00:09:02.920 like we do these projects we we uh we want to do these projects but yet we don't want to spearhead

00:09:09.200 invest in these projects nor take an equity position and that makes no sense to me especially

00:09:13.920 when there's a trillion growing to two trillion dollars out there now it might be quite frankly

00:09:20.380 they don't think they're going to have returns well that's scary then why are we doing them

00:09:24.860 right so then why are they major projects also we haven't had to be productive since wartime

00:09:30.300 right we haven't had any productivity so if it's if we're going to have to base this on what we're

00:09:37.020 building and how productive we make these projects we don't have a great track record and and by the

00:09:41.580 way why isn't carney saying hey i just read the scene from the actuary over here you know what

00:09:47.500 I think we can do this with our own projects. Why are you and I sitting here doing this?

00:09:54.700 Well, it's a good question, Mike. Do they not believe in the profitability of the projects?

00:10:02.040 So when the pension fund executives, do they look at it and they say, okay,

00:10:09.000 we don't like 15 of these projects. We don't think they'll have a return. And we think we

00:10:14.740 can go to the u.s get better productivity and get a higher return on investing on energy development

00:10:21.740 in the united states rather than saying okay canada we're going to kill this now everybody's

00:10:26.420 got to work hard and uh you know the other one that got me these projects that we're talking

00:10:31.460 about right now heavily affected because just the people that will build them the actual construction

00:10:36.860 the the number of people required to do these jobs if i was an investor i'd be like oh canada

00:10:43.260 doesn't have those people and it's true oh yeah we've talked about it on many shows and part of

00:10:49.100 that is great point mike because part of that is actually why we have to increase the retirement age

00:10:55.980 yes so we almost have to now and i know people are going to say oh no you can't do that that's

00:11:02.140 gonna well if you don't have trades if you're going to have a trade shortage if you're going

00:11:07.740 to have a skilled labor shortage in the country and most of those people at the top end are the

00:11:12.460 people that fill those jobs and they're about to retire at 65 you don't want to give them the

00:11:17.260 opportunity to retire if you're going to try to get these projects off the ground you want to

00:11:20.860 move them through another five years hopefully to retrain a bunch of people or immigrate a bunch of

00:11:25.580 people to take those projects so quite frankly that's the conundrum they're in oh yeah yeah

00:11:30.300 built you're right retire at 65 but then you retire at 65 i have no um i have no uh heavy

00:11:37.740 mechanical uh trades people i have no uh industrial electrical i have none of those trades in place

00:11:46.300 to get these projects off the ground in the country good luck going to another nation now

00:11:51.820 and getting one of those trades to come to canada you will not get it i guarantee you

00:11:57.340 our people are going to other countries but those people are not coming because quite frankly their

00:12:02.220 salaries and benefits they get at a higher dollar value so think about that exactly as our dollar

00:12:08.060 value falls we have to pay so much money to get them in play to compensate for the dollar devaluation

00:12:15.580 and to get them actually to move here to actually bring their family and then if they have to go

00:12:19.980 back to the other country they want to be paid in usd because of the higher value or that's

00:12:26.540 they're not looking to move here for the dollar valuation issues so there's a lot of things that

00:12:31.660 we have to consider now and how we're spending this money from the cpp is a very big issue now

00:12:38.620 uh the old age security is basically just funded by taxes every year but if the tax base so now

00:12:46.460 here's the other now the tax base is decreasing and so the amount of people working is so those

00:12:53.020 things so if our population doesn't go up and our labor force doesn't go up and employment goes

00:12:57.660 higher that actuarial assumption that we have stable taxation without throughout the country

00:13:04.140 on a go forward basis doesn't prove out therefore it won't cover and we won't be able to actually

00:13:09.820 and then we have to go to the investment realm and if that doesn't have value to the don't forget

00:13:15.060 you you can take it to the investment world but if there's no buy on it there's no buy on it right

00:13:20.340 so this shocked me actually yeah a build force canada's 2026 outlook puts construction hiring

00:13:26.180 sorry i was looking through my papers to find this yeah uh build force canada's 2026 outlook

00:13:31.140 puts construction hiring requirements at 306 200 workers over the decade most of that replaces

00:13:37.800 retirements with 32 100 32 100 more people in growth so 300 000 people being replaced is a

00:13:48.260 serious amount and and actually only 32 000 of those make a difference to us growing that workforce

00:13:55.400 base that's stunning the residential side alone expects 135 000 retirements by 2035

00:14:03.560 more than a fifth of the workforce well and more now because more are leaving so if there's no

00:14:08.840 residential building if really think about it mike we were building mega custom homes for the

00:14:14.360 last decade that's true so you would travel across toronto and you see some beautiful homes being

00:14:18.920 built and the workmanship so what we did is we created this this market of really highly skilled

00:14:26.040 great traits so if i'm a tile setter or i'm a hardwood flooring guy or something i was doing

00:14:32.600 really nice fine finish um you know work now it's not here anymore yeah so what's left in canada to

00:14:40.360 build going forward i do this on so many shows we're we're going to be building low-end housing

00:14:46.280 so for people kind of buy it look to buy new homes it won't be it'll be vinyl floors it'll be

00:14:52.680 you know thinly uh framed out drywall walls it'll be the the workmanship and the finished products

00:15:00.120 that we saw before because the supply management chains with everything going on and oil and gas

00:15:05.640 and everything happening in the world won't be able to deliver those materials onto our shores

00:15:10.680 to build those finely finished custom homes anymore and as you say the market for those homes

00:15:15.800 is disappearing so all of this amazing workmanship and craftsmanship that we've built

00:15:21.080 really those people they don't want to go build vinyl homes no no and you went and quite frankly

00:15:25.640 if you can ship off to another country and use your because the higher the value of the work

00:15:30.920 they do the better the bid the more the margin the more the profit if all you're doing is you know

00:15:35.960 if you're just putting in vinyl floors click flooring no one's going to pay you a lot of

00:15:41.400 of money to be a trades for doing that but if you're doing high-end tile or if you're doing

00:15:45.900 you know really nice hardware if you're doing really nice finished products you get paid more

00:15:51.680 money to install it because people are willing to pay the price for finished workmanship finished

00:15:56.640 workmanship in canada is a thing of the past i know people don't like to hear that but it really

00:16:00.980 is you will not see it going forward people as they get older they will retire so if i'm if i'm

00:16:06.960 sitting i've had the last decade i've been really doing really well do i want to do kind of crappy

00:16:13.120 builds anymore no probably don't i'm going to retire am i going to move to another country

00:16:17.920 am i going to just go get a place on a lake or yeah probably i am therefore we're going to have

00:16:24.080 this big void so if but we might be able to alter that decision of people if we were to say to them

00:16:32.880 hey we're going to start to move the old age retirement age up one two three years maybe even

00:16:42.640 to 70 at some point now that sounds scary denmark's on the way to 70 that's their mission

00:16:47.600 yeah but that sounds scary but now we have think about it now we have people living to 80

00:16:54.160 that is 5 90. you know i was just over to see my dad the other day you know there's a bunch of

00:16:59.600 90 year olds kind of moving around you know they're struggling but but they're they're moving

00:17:04.640 they're talking they're they're interacting and you know i look and i think to myself you would

00:17:09.200 have never seen people of this age you know when i was a kid you know you went to old age homes you

00:17:15.680 didn't find many people in their 80s and 90s now we're starting to see people living and with with

00:17:21.600 pharma and all the things we're doing right now that's only going to start to only increase over

00:17:26.960 time and quality of life at that older age will be better hopefully better yeah better you know

00:17:32.000 it's wild to me this uh kind of begs the question about work-life balance throughout your entire

00:17:37.520 career because if all we're trying to do is get to 65 so that we can get a break then we've built

00:17:44.080 this whole thing wrong oh yeah i mean really we have built it wrong how people are paid

00:17:50.000 how much time they get how we're encouraged to spend time with our families that's all gone

00:17:55.520 yeah i mean you and i run a company we have people working extreme hours it's the way that

00:18:02.320 life goes and that's what's expected and it's been that way since the 80s yeah well but but mike

00:18:09.600 people throughout the ages people are happiest when they're going uphill i always say that to

00:18:15.040 everyone people are happy when they have a mission happy when they're working hard happy when we all

00:18:20.480 hear the stories you know he worked for 40 years or she worked for 30 years she retired

00:18:26.560 they passed away yeah well that's not the right the right approach and i think we've all kind of

00:18:31.440 figured that out so it's a lot of new canadians have arrived over the last decade and you know

00:18:37.520 it's interesting as i i meet them and i talk to them my goal is to get a government job it's

00:18:43.440 interesting i i hear that consistently yeah why do you want that because i get a pension because

00:18:48.480 i get a union okay all right so work through it with me yeah all right what is your goal well i

00:18:55.280 don't have a goal my goal is to get that pension get to the retirement age okay so you get to the

00:19:00.480 retirement age what are you going to do well i'm going to go home i'm going to go back home okay

00:19:05.760 you're going to go back home you're going to go back home what are you going to do when you get

00:19:08.240 back home well i'm going to retire i'm just going to sit around and you know me enjoy life yeah okay

00:19:13.120 doing what who in your family is going to be left what do you mean like well you know your parents

00:19:19.520 probably are not going to be left they might be you might be lucky and maybe they're uh still

00:19:24.960 around and you can most of the community that you left has moved they've moved to another country

00:19:29.440 or quite frankly they've aged so they've moved they've moved physically within the country they

00:19:34.640 moved out of the country so how do you know that that plan works for you and that's a great question

00:19:40.720 fall and but they don't think it through they think you know it's the stability of having

00:19:44.880 the ability to get that money on a monthly basis is their key focus so now you think about the

00:19:50.640 trauma you cause yourself because and i've i've been there because i started a company actually

00:19:55.840 in my 20s which became a very big company and eventually all the people in that company sit

00:20:01.440 around and what they do is they go okay i got four years three months two days left till retirement

00:20:11.280 and then they wait and then they go oh they're going to give a package out and so then they

00:20:15.520 have this everyone in the bus okay package is coming is the package good oh do i factor and

00:20:22.080 then they sit there and they do their they do the factor they have a spreadsheet figured out

00:20:25.840 and they're like and i'm like your brain at that point you have to think what's happening to your

00:20:30.800 brain because the psychosis of that thought process has to be hurting your brain in some

00:20:36.560 shape or form because you're not growing you're nothing you're primarily focused on achieving

00:20:43.120 it's really not a goal like longevity of a career is not a goal getting to the grave is not a goal

00:20:49.840 it's not a goal right so you're you're spending all your time so it's it's kind of that you know

00:20:54.960 that conversation we've had before about asset valuations if all you're doing is spending time

00:21:00.960 passively watching something appreciate you have to watch that you don't start believing that you're

00:21:07.280 doing that that's a good point it's just time doing that yeah time's doing that you're not 0.99

00:21:12.080 doing that so if you catch the good luck many baby boomers can't wait to tell you how smart 0.62

00:21:16.960 and successful they were with their money exactly making that real estate investment they did yeah 0.62

00:21:21.520 i knew it was going to be worth three million no you didn't no no you know you woke up and you

00:21:27.200 ate but but you have to be careful that you don't get hooked into that that challenge and that

00:21:33.680 cycle where you're waiting and you're waiting another day and wait another day because then

00:21:37.440 what happens is you stop and humans are not meant to stop right they're meant to be purpose driven

00:21:44.480 like what are you doing after this might be a good way to look at it how are you going how are you

00:21:48.400 going to leverage what's your next career what's your next career are you going to make hot sauce

00:21:52.480 are you gonna are you gonna you know i mentioned to you my dad when he when he finally uh took his

00:21:57.840 uh retirement and he started he didn't do very good he failed retirement and then he went out

00:22:02.640 and he actually started building little uh cork reindeers and selling them and doing like birch

00:22:09.040 tree reindeers so that was his whole thing and it kept his mind going can't depend that your health

00:22:14.320 is going to last and in his case his health didn't last so he was struggling at that point

00:22:19.120 and that's that's always again the challenge that you go through hey before we go any further please

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00:22:35.680 you don't want to miss what happens behind the paywall all right back to the show but but then

00:22:40.960 okay so now you have which is interesting which we've talked about before you have people living

00:22:46.960 longer than they worked right so now it's 65 which is you know this actuary you know the the the

00:22:55.200 federal actuaries who do the work they're trying to factor in and i'm sure they have a challenge

00:23:00.160 because they have a number of scenarios bad scenarios good scenarios and you know they tell

00:23:04.240 us the kind of the medium scenario with a little bit of positivity i'm sure um so now in the bad

00:23:10.160 scenarios they're like wow what do we do if actually all these people live longer than

00:23:16.720 they work so if they work 30 years they're retired for 30 35 40 so now they're starting to surpass

00:23:23.280 that time and here we are on the hook for cpp all these pension funds you know payments and

00:23:31.200 how does it sustain and the and our birth rates yeah i was gonna say up against a declining

00:23:36.400 birth rate you know i have a cousin you know who you are and uh she created a spreadsheet

00:23:43.200 oh my goodness you know to count down the days um upon retirement she became confused

00:23:52.960 about what to do with life because her whole focus was getting out of putting a certain

00:23:57.440 amount of effort into work and a certain amount of effort into planning how to finish work and

00:24:03.840 she met her financial goals yes psychologists get a lot of these people you know there she is yeah

00:24:10.800 i've met i've met some shrinks who their whole practice is dealing with people who are trying

00:24:15.280 to cope with retirement no i can imagine so you think about oh my god could you imagine you

00:24:20.160 retired no no no i'm going to you're the most irritating retired guy i ever met no no i'm

00:24:25.760 working till the end yeah i'm working straight i would say i'm doing the same you know till they

00:24:30.400 take it you know uh till the wheels fall off but it's interesting and the reason that i point that

00:24:35.200 out is because i do think that the we have a certain mentality around retirement that is

00:24:42.240 based on really fancy well-made commercials back in the 80s telling us at 55 you can be free and

00:24:49.520 on a sailboat yeah have you been on a sailboat for longer than a couple hours oh it drives me crazy

00:24:54.560 so my one of my uh good friends a business associate uh he had a 46 foot sailboat and down

00:25:01.520 in florida love the guy and quite frankly he used to want to go all the time yeah uh i would last

00:25:08.240 like two hours just like should we just pour it in here someplace like yeah yeah i would last two

00:25:13.760 god bless you if you find your passion yeah like your dad when found stuff to do my dad

00:25:19.120 still very active and and you would hope that that's what your mentality is but he has been

00:25:25.760 you know he had a pension and he does get seniors he is able to go out there and be a part of the

00:25:30.320 community i could see my dad and your dad in their 70s probably into 75 being pretty viable people

00:25:39.200 to have in your business oh yeah yes well again he you know he was kicking around doing odd jobs

00:25:45.040 in his own company and so he he kind of uh he i think what happened to him it wasn't so much

00:25:52.400 that he wanted to retire he didn't want to do what he had done for 30 years like that's another

00:25:58.400 thing i can understand that people aren't built if people get so afraid to try something new

00:26:05.440 that's a challenge also so if all of a sudden i don't want to change my profession and i you know

00:26:10.560 know i being a serial entrepreneur i've never had that issue so but i've met family members and

00:26:17.040 other people who have so they go along and they got this profession they're doing one thing and

00:26:22.220 they believe that's all they're going to do for the rest of their life so then they come towards

00:26:26.360 retirement and unfortunately they can't shift their paradigm and shift their brains to figure

00:26:32.660 out what is next and you know and it's so funny because i know about there's about 10 jobs that

00:26:39.860 have in my mind when i get too old to be to run a business and to be manage a business that i will

00:26:46.500 go to yeah yeah like you know like my grand my great grandfather i'll go be a property manager

00:26:52.580 for a property because i love buildings and i love building so i'll go just maintain a building i'll

00:26:57.300 go you know do something from a project management real estate perspective i got about 10 jobs in my

00:27:02.820 mind for sure that i'll go kind of just putz around on a site and plan and future barista right here

00:27:08.580 yeah there you go and well what's you know you like people you like to talk to people

00:27:13.060 again it doesn't always have to be about this huge financial windfall that you get from a job

00:27:18.020 it can be the satisfaction of doing something really well which you know in north america

00:27:24.740 verse in europe i give europeans a little bit more credit for this europeans are okay to actually go

00:27:31.460 into something and it might be the smallest task but they will spend their life or part of their

00:27:38.340 life trying to create the perfect cheese or the perfect wine or the perfect so they will get

00:27:44.420 involved in something just to try to work on perfection as a goal that keeps them sustaining

00:27:50.020 living working thriving driven that's a really keeps them going where we don't like we tend to

00:27:55.300 kind of yeah you know and that's okay i'm no longer i'm no longer going to be working and

00:28:00.020 have a brain in this world but that's you're right it's it's very interesting in ireland the uh the

00:28:06.340 top uh i guess uh brewmeisters uh or what are they called nick do you know what these people

00:28:12.360 are called the guys who make beer oh brewmaster brewmaster i said brewmeister like i'm in germany

00:28:18.060 uh it's oblivion but uh essentially those many of those guys in small towns take on the craft

00:28:27.140 of brewing exactly and then the winners of these become iconic at a late age uh golf

00:28:33.820 by the way golf is not a horrible thing uh we have a friend who's semi-retired he golfs yeah

00:28:41.000 but he also you know what he doesn't want to pay for his membership so he works part-time at the

00:28:45.620 golf course to pay off his fees yeah that's his passion good for him yeah but that got him to the

00:28:50.960 next place and it's reduced a major expense in his life which is a passion that he has yeah i'm with

00:28:56.040 you i think people have to begin to think that way however as we start to think about retirement

00:29:01.260 as a sort of a financial burden on the country i do think we kind of need to rethink how we're

00:29:08.260 going to come up with this money rather than grabbing it from investments that are working

00:29:12.180 in other places we need to make viable investments here that build that fund that allow people some

00:29:17.380 freedom right but it's interesting mike is it a necessity because you know you look across and

00:29:22.620 you look at denmark going from six is 67 now they're going to 68 in 2030 sweden is 67 they're

00:29:32.360 going they're going to go up um the uk is 66 going to 67 by 28 68 from 2000 2044 um australia is 67

00:29:45.560 well they've been there for a few july the u.s is 67 if you're born after 1960 so you know and

00:29:54.700 you know the u.s is i don't only get into the u.s because their social security retirement fund is

00:30:00.420 a disaster right so it's not been managed well it's not been invested well and quite frankly

00:30:05.880 they're thinking by 2032 uh basically uh it's basically almost extinguished done it's done so

00:30:14.220 So it's at 78%.

00:30:15.900 Our producer, Nick, said,

00:30:16.680 oh, the Republicans have been trying to get rid of that for years.

00:30:20.820 It's actually true.

00:30:21.980 They have been trying.

00:30:23.140 They've done nothing to bolster it at all.

00:30:26.560 Yeah.

00:30:26.820 Now, it's interesting.

00:30:27.540 China has a much lower, but it has a higher birth rate per capita, right?

00:30:33.800 Yeah, they have the people to replace people in those positions.

00:30:36.520 They're constantly having people born to actually try to backfill.

00:30:40.380 and that's where we're not really focused right now as a as a country and we we have to start

00:30:45.860 having that blunt conversation with people okay everyone you know you had kids those kids didn't

00:30:52.880 have a lot of kids those kids who had didn't have a lot of kids aren't having any kids so quite

00:30:57.640 frankly we're down now to one kid per female yeah which is half of what we had to be able to sustain

00:31:04.980 this so here's where we're at statistically disastrous yeah yeah we don't have the social

00:31:09.600 programs to immigrate people and quite frankly the people we're immigrating don't have the skill

00:31:13.840 sets to backfill the skills to do the jobs that we need so quite right here we are we got it so 0.98

00:31:20.080 we're at this pivoting point i know governments don't want to address it but it is a very difficult

00:31:25.840 decision that's going to be have to be made now fast forward because you know on the weekend we

00:31:31.600 we saw all this craziness with respect to this in another proposal from iran to the u.s denied

00:31:37.920 um china just left and it looked like quite frankly the summit in the u.s it looked nice

00:31:44.160 on the outside if you look behind the details which we're going to be doing another show 0.97

00:31:48.080 it doesn't look so good yeah it was not a successful trade mission no no they they

00:31:53.280 they hit loggerheads early on with scott bessett and the chinese negotiating team that arrived

00:31:58.080 before uh president chi arrived in the u.s right they were done and you could see it on

00:32:03.200 besant's face he was very upset he had a oh yeah he was pretty serious scowl the whole time yeah

00:32:08.160 they're not giving us rare earth they're not buying soybeans we're in trouble here so that

00:32:13.280 relationship is struggling uh at the best and that needs to be kind of developed or figured out over

00:32:20.240 the next couple months or they're gonna really hit loggerheads we're sitting there now trying to

00:32:26.080 figure out our relationship with the rest of the world we really need to start thinking where we're

00:32:30.560 going to get the people to do the projects to your early point because as those countries kind

00:32:35.040 of start to nationalize and close off it's not like they're going to be coming and people and

00:32:41.280 resources especially skilled people are going to start to be a huge resource and i've said this on

00:32:46.880 other shows we we talk about minerals and earth and robots and technology and ai and everything

00:32:53.280 that's a long way off right for now like think about it we would need the skilled laborers to

00:32:58.720 even if we wanted to do all those things to go build those robots if you don't have a workforce

00:33:03.440 in place that can do any of that you missed it you missed the deal it goes elsewhere and it

00:33:09.360 exactly so even if you were interested in doing that if you don't have if all your people at 65

00:33:14.320 have retired that have the skill set to do that or you have the knowledge to do that how do you do

00:33:19.200 any of it you don't and you can't so so the issue is what happens if people start to shut off people

00:33:25.280 migrating with skill sets what if what happens if countries start to say oh no no no you're not

00:33:30.560 leaving you're born here yeah you know you decide to go there you give up your citizenship forever

00:33:35.520 so there's a one-way ticket here which i wouldn't be surprised to see that start to happen i wouldn't

00:33:40.640 be surprised either and especially in places like china oh yeah you know the government is so heavy

00:33:47.040 handed in in the lives of people and especially their career lives yeah i could see that being a

00:33:53.440 reality but you're right i think we really do need a plan on this uh that says okay we're going to

00:33:58.640 become you know paul it always comes down to that same thing how can we grow without being productive

00:34:05.840 now we need to make uh productivity last longer in life yeah that's just a reality and the good

00:34:12.160 news is we're living longer and feeling better longer but that's the reality that we put

00:34:17.280 ourselves into but again you know you look back at 2016 mike we kind of we had the opportunity at

00:34:24.320 that point to address this issue we really that was the time we should have you know and to say

00:34:29.760 that it's the to increase the age is too simple a solution okay then what is the solution what is

00:34:36.240 the solution that was an interesting comment an oversimplified uh solution yeah that's a cop-out

00:34:42.400 in other words i don't want to deal with this because i'll lose votes so i'm going to pass on

00:34:45.840 it okay you're gonna pass on it what's next and here we are here we are now and it's staring us

00:34:52.640 right in the face we you know we have to figure out what to do i would agree uh this is part of

00:34:57.840 the problem when you are in an echo chamber that's been a government for so long in the same country

00:35:05.680 you tend to leave these things open to yeah thing yeah open to the next election as a talking point

00:35:13.280 but not really a motion point. Thanks, Paul. Thanks, Mike.

True Patriot Love - September 29, 2026

Should Canada Raise the Retirement Age to 70？

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