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Ontario’s soon-to-be-defunct standalone pension plan cost taxpayers at least $16 million over the past two years, according to government estimates and public accounts.

Based on the numbers available, it’s likely the figure was closer to $20 million. The money was spent on research and to start setting up the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan and the “administration corporation” that was supposed to run it.

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Premier Kathleen Wynne says the program will be “wound down,” but could not estimate how much the ORPP has already cost taxpayers.

Instead, starting in 2019, all Canadian workers will pay about $7 more a month into the Canada Pension Plan. Had the ORPP gone ahead, Ontarians without a workplace pension plan would have paid at least double that on a sliding scale geared to their income.

That means the province will likely save millions, even billions, in the long run. In the short term, Ontario has already poured $14 million into the plan in fiscal 2015-16, booked $1.7 million in costs for this year and spent almost $2 million on ads promoting the plan.