The last time politicians pitched for votes in Ontario, pensions topped the agenda. This time, not so much.

Back in 2014, Kathleen Wynne campaigned to create a new provincial pension fund. Ontario’s PCs derided it as a “payroll tax,” while the provincial New Democrats dismissed it as an election ploy, insisting that pension reform be left to the next federal campaign.

But with the coming of another election season, the pension debate has taken unexpected turns — provincially and nationally.

Re-elected as premier, Wynne defied expectations by cobbling together an Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP) within a year. The plan isn’t perfect, but it’s a workable framework to be phased in starting in 2017.

More surprising, however, is what hasn’t happened. In the current campaign for prime minister, the rival Liberal and NDP leaders have been curiously low key in pushing for an expanded Canada Pension Plan.

Their reticence is not only a missed opportunity to give all Canadians a better CPP, it could also leave Ontarians stuck with a plan that isn’t as good as it could be.

Confounding expectations that the NDP would throw its full weight behind the crusade, party leader Tom Mulcair has reserved his most passionate rhetoric for deficit reduction, not pension expansion. While both Mulcair and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau have publicly promised to talk up pension reform with the provinces post-election, neither has said much about the details in mid-campaign.

To which I say: If you don’t start a serious conversation now, you won’t have a strong mandate to make the premiers listen later (provincial support is required for CPP changes).

We have spent more time in this campaign talking about the bogeyman of national security than retirement income security, even though pension shortfalls will affect millions of Canadians. There has been more passionate debate about banning the niqab at citizenship ceremonies (affecting a few dozen immigrants) than lifting the veil on CPP reform.

As prime minister, Stephen Harper’s anti-pension obsession has ranged from merely ideological to hysterical — at first backing an expanded CPP in 2010, then backing away from it in 2014, then warming up to reform again last spring, and finally denouncing it this summer. Harper wrongly claims the ORPP and an enhanced CPP amount to a “job-killing payroll tax,” yet as every reputable economist keeps telling him, pension premiums are emphatically not taxes because they are not retained by the government — merely invested by an arm’s-length body that repays the accumulated earnings to pensioners upon retirement.

Good as it is, our 50-year-old CPP is good only as far as it goes, which isn’t far enough. Its premiums apply only to the first $50,000 of employment income, which limits the maximum payout to roughly $12,500 a year upon retirement — barely half of what U.S. Social Security offers.

That’s why the CPP is something of Potemkin pension. It leaves a growing gap for middle class workers whose incomes above $50,000 don’t count as pensionable earnings, which is illogical and indefensible. Meanwhile, traditional (“defined benefit”) pensions are dying out rapidly, replaced by so-called “defined contribution” schemes that are little more than glorified savings plans whose payouts upon retirement remain unpredictable.

The vast majority of Canadians still don’t have workplace plans of any kind, and it will only get worse: Young people entering the workforce today will jump from job to job in an era of more precarious and intermittent employment. Little wonder a Nanos poll last May showed nine of 10 Canadians want the CPP improved.

Which brings us to the shortcomings in the latest Ontario plan, unveiled last month. Wynne’s ORPP does some things well, but other things less well.

Queen’s Park has decided not to displace existing private pensions that are deemed “comparable” — even if they are merely defined contribution (DC) plans. The ORPP uses a complex formula to determine which DC plans are generous enough to merit an exemption.

It’s an actuarial compromise, but it’s awkward public policy. Far better to design the ORPP for all Ontarians, because a universal plan would get universal buy-in. Exempting some private plans will create uncertainty for ORPP fund managers, not just because it leaves a smaller pool of contributors (reduced scale), but a more precarious pool of leftover workers. People with the most predictable employment patterns will be skimmed off by workplace plans, while the most vulnerable employees will form the bulk of the public plan — making it harder to predict cash flows and make investments.

There is a better alternative, in the form of an enhanced CPP that applies to everyone, based on their income. That has always been everyone’s first choice, which is why Ontario pushed for CPP expansion from the first — opting for its own ORPP only as a last resort. An Ontario pension is better than nothing, but Canadians can do better as a country.

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Now is the time for Mulcair and Trudeau to talk up an expanded CPP more forcefully and passionately. Tweedledee Trudeau and Tweedledum Tom need to find their voices while still on the campaign trail, because saving their piece for later won’t save our pensions.