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Time is nearly up for the provinces to finalize their agreement with Ottawa over the expanded Canadian Pension Plan. The race is on for bureaucrats at both levels to hammer out details to meet an aggressive July 15th deadline, set just three-and-a-half weeks after most first ministers agreed to a hasty, uncompleted plan on June 20th. The reason for the rush? That’s what Ontario insisted upon as its condition to dropping its own ill-considered pension scheme. Ontario’s finance minister demanded a “drop-dead date” before agreeing to cancel the Ontario plan, which had been lambasted by economists and the business community, and which Ottawa desperately needed to kill. Critics have called this a “hasty” way to make a serious change affecting all Canadian employers, workers and their retirements. Manitoba, which hasn’t yet agreed, wants more time to suggest changes.

Ontario seems pretty chuffed with the way the Trudeau government has been marching to Queen’s Park’s tune lately, with Premier Kathleen Wynne openly taking credit for being the “thorn in the side” of the other leaders that made the CPP deal come together. But last week, another group took credit for convincing the government to forcibly deduct more savings from your paycheque, with union leaders, who have been pushing for fatter CPP contributions for years, celebrating what they call an “unprecedented” camaraderie with the federal Liberal government.