Kathleen Wynne is at a turning point on pensions.

For much of her first year in power, the premier campaigned to boost the Canada Pension Plan. Rebuffed by Ottawa, Wynne is now planning an Ontario pension plan of her own for the spring budget.

It will be a bold political rollout. She’d best not drop the ball.

To fully grasp the risk of a pension flip and political flop, it’s worth retracing the premier’s steps.

At two summits convened by Ontario, Wynne rallied her fellow premiers on pensions. Her treasurer, Charles Sousa, also forged an unprecedented consensus among the provinces late last year — until the federal Conservatives nixed it.

In the aftermath, Wynne — you know, the premier who jogs in those TV ads, talking breathlessly about solving tough challenges — restated her vow to carry the baton forward: Ontario would pursue its own public pension plan to supplement the CPP.

Give the premier and treasurer credit for placing our erratic retirement incomes back on the national agenda. The maximum CPP payment is a mere $12,000 a year — far below the needs of most middle class Canadians. Future generations can’t rely on private pensions (passé) or RRSPs (unused) in an era of precarious work, weak savings and corporate flame-outs.

But for all her public resolve, is Wynne wavering privately in the homestretch? After professing her fealty to CPP expansion, is she now flirting with second-best options?

Government sources say the Liberals are still considering a way to mirror the CPP’s time-tested “Defined Benefit” model, with fixed (or targeted) payouts for all. It has long been Ontario’s first choice.

But the premier also seems enamoured of a “Defined Contribution” plan based on the British “NEST” model that would allow Ontarians to “opt out.” As outlined in Sunday’s column, this NEST option is analogous to the retirement accounts many risk-averse corporations are switching to.

But these “defined contribution” plans are widely seen as glorified savings accounts because they make no promises or targets for future payouts. Plan members are vulnerable to the vicissitudes of the market when it comes time to lock their lifetime savings into an annuity — just like an RRSP.

For Wynne, the political appeal of a British-style NEST is that the opt-out provision serves as a political safety valve to disarm opponents. The premier knows that anti-tax populists will pounce on any pension proposals, trying to confuse the public with talk of payroll taxes or deductions that pick our pockets.

Wynne will counter, correctly, that pension premiums have nothing to do with a naked tax grab. They aren’t siphoned off to the government’s coffers for its own spending.

Politically, a voluntary NEST plan would be that much easier for Wynne to pitch than a conventional CPP-style pension. So, too, would other options, notably a variation on the PRPPs (Pooled Registered Pension Plans) pushed by Ottawa. PRPPs were resisted, until last year, by Ontario because they tend to have higher fees and erratic enrolment.

Quite apart from the inferior performance of a NEST or PRPP-style plan, Wynne would be closing the door to any future CPP enhancement. If there were a change in government federally, Ontario could not reverse itself so late in the game to give Ottawa a second chance.

Just listen to Keith Ambachtsheer, a pension expert on an advisory panel set up by Wynne: “You can’t just suddenly say two years from now, ‘Oh now there’s a change in government in Ottawa, now we’re going to do CPP enhancement’,” he told me. “You can’t switch tracks.”

Why would Wynne import an untested British NEST when the CPP’s homegrown nest egg has incubated so handsomely? Why is Sousa talking up Ottawa’s PRPPs, and possible hybrid models, when they are widely discredited?

And why isn’t Wynne broadening the conversation to close the consultation gap in her pension panel? It boasts an impressive blue chip membership, but lacks any voice from organized labour, which has long spearheaded the drive to enhance the CPP.

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Wynne has a historic opportunity to bequeath an Ontario Pension Plan as her lasting legacy. As any pension fund manager (or marathoner) would tell our jogger-premier, short term calculations don’t pay off in the long run.

Sometimes you have to run uphill.

Martin Regg Cohn’s provincial affairs column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. mcohn@thestar.ca , Twitter: @reggcohn

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