Voyageur 73
More Canadians Are Waiting Until 70 to Collect CPP, and The Iran War Is Rewriting Gas Prices Back Home.
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More Are Waiting Until 70 to Collect CPP
For years, almost nobody waited. Before 2016, less than 1% of retirees held off on collecting CPP until age 70. That number has now risen above 7%, and the Chief Actuary thinks that it’s going to keep rising.
Every year a potential recipient waits past 65 means a bigger monthly cheque for the rest of his or her life. Financial planners have been trying to hammer this point home for a decade, and it looks like it’s finally sinking in. Canadians are also retiring later, which makes deferral easier when you're still pulling a salary.
Not everyone should wait, though. If your savings are thin, your health is shaky, or you've already maxed out your CPP contributions by 65, taking it earlier might make more sense. On the other hand, if you're in Quebec, the QPP lets you push all the way to 72.
The reward for waiting from 65 to 70 is a healthy 42% bump in monthly payments. Whether that changes your life or barely registers depends a lot on where you're living and what currency you're spending it in.
Read more: The Globe and Mail
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The Iran War Is Rewriting Gas Prices
If you've talked to anyone in Canada on planet Earth lately, they've probably mentioned the price of gas. The average now in Canada hit $1.70 a litre, up from $1.21 New Year’s Day. Vancouver is at $2.12. Montreal is at $1.84. The IEA says April’s going to be worse than March.
The numbers behind it are staggering. since the Strait of Hormuz was choked on March 4, it strangled roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply. Brent crude jumped more than 60% in March - the biggest monthly gain since records began in the 1980s. IEA head Fatih Birol said the disruption has already been bigger than those of the 1973 and 1979 oil crises combined, with 12 million barrels per day off the market.
The U.S. and allies have released 400 million barrels from strategic reserves - also a record - and temporarily lifted sanctions on some Russian and Iranian oil to ease the squeeze. Trump said American forces would leave Iran "in two or three weeks," which triggered a brief market rally, but few are betting on a timeline.
One wrinkle for Canada, though is that traditionally, the oilpatch has tended to do well when the rest of the world is panicking about supply. Canada's stability is considered a selling point right (again), which means Alberta's economy might be one of the few places that will get out of this thing ahead of where it started.