Voyageur 102
Canada Drops $2 Million in Manila. The Asia Pivot Keeps Going, and Saskatchewan Has a Pension Plan. Any Canadian Can Join.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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Canada Drops $2 Million in Manila. The Asia Pivot Keeps Going.
Canada is putting $2 million into the Luzon Economic Corridor, a Philippines infrastructure project that started as a US-Japan-Philippines venture and this week added seven new partners. Canada is one of them. Also participating are South Korea, Australia, the UK and France.
Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu was in Manila this week, looking at possible investments in data centres, nuclear energy and logistics. He also said a Canada-Philippines free trade deal could be wrapped up "in the coming months."
It's another Asia move from a government that has spent two months trying to hitch Canada to anyone that isn't Washington. Carney has gone to Yerevan, pledged $500 billion for European-flavoured defence, and now Sidhu is in Manila working on a free trade agreement that wasn't on anyone's radar a year ago. (Voyageur 96, 101)
Read more: The Globe and Mail
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A photo from the old country:
Saskatchewan Has a Pension Plan. Any Canadian Can Join.
Canada has a pension plan that most Canadians have never heard of. The Saskatchewan Pension Plan started in 1986 for part-time workers and the self-employed. It now has more than $800 million in assets and more than 33,000 members, and it is open to any Canadian aged 18 to 71, with no provincial residency requirement.
Annual contribution caps came off in 2023, so contributions are now limited only by RRSP room. Fees stay under 1% (0.91% for the Balanced Fund, 0.89% for the Diversified Income Fund). The Balanced Fund mixes equities, infrastructure, real estate and bonds, and has returned 7.07% annualized in the past decade.
The trade-off is the "pension" part. Money is locked in until age 55, and withdrawals have a few rules attached, but for Canadians shopping for a low-fee retirement vehicle that isn't tied to a province, it might be worth checking out.
Read more: MoneySense