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It has been three weeks since the nation’s finance ministers issued that strange, haiku-like “agreement on principle” to expand the Canada Pension Plan, its 112 words somehow neglecting to mention such intriguing details as how much premiums would increase.

All Canadians learned in the well-orchestrated hoo-ha that ensued was that their benefits would go up by a third. Only some days later did it emerge that so would the contributions they pay into the plan — and over nine years, versus the 40-year phase-in of benefit increases.

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Yet if the public was kept in the dark, ministers themselves seem scarcely clearer on what they have agreed to. Even today basic questions remain unanswered, such as the cost of the changes to the federal treasury, or whether low-income Canadians will see any increased payout in retirement, net of the clawback in other benefits.

Yet the federal government and provinces are rushing to formally sign on to this murky agreement on who-knows-what by the end of this week, on the unassailable public policy grounds that Ontario insists they must. Granted, heading off the Wynne government’s threatened excursion into the pension business may be the best argument for the agreement, but nothing says the ransom must be delivered on such an absurdly hasty schedule.