How Ontario Is Counting On Its Pension From India

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is aiming for a larger share of India’s booming real assets market.

- V.KESHAVDEV

INDIAN PENSIONERS have had it good for the past couple of years. Imagine a modest shopkeeper in Mumbai, diligently setting aside a portion of his earnings into the National Pension System (NPS). Five years later, he finds his nest egg has grown by an impressive 18-20%, thanks to savvy equity investments. He’s not alone; 7.35 crore Indians are now reaping the benefits of the NPS and Atal Pension Yojana, which are transforming retirement planning in ways previously unimaginable. But it’s not just Indians who are making the most of this growth story — so are the Canadians!

In the Great White North, the pension system is a well-established promise of security. Canada boasts both public and private pension plans, with two primary public ones: the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan, and five provincial public sector plans. In Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, teacher pensions are managed by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), the country’s largest single-profession pension plan run jointly by the Ontario Teachers’ Federation and the Ontario government.

OTPP serves a vast community of 340,000 members, with the average age of its pensioners at 74. On average, in Ontario, teachers retire at 59, drawing an annual pension of around $50,000. Remarkably, there are 148 OTPP pensioners over the age of 100! But as the number of golden years stretches longer, so does the shadow of inflation. Canada’s Food Price Report forecasts a family of four will spend $16,297 on food in 2024 — a rise of up to $701 from the previous year.

It’s a steep climb that affects not just the living but also the dead.