View cases - Stewart McKelvey

Page: 69[263] Other costs to the public purse include increased demands on the health-care system byemployees who have lost their private, work-related supplemental insurance coverage, and byindividuals whose loss of employment results in them qualifying for means-based benefits. Dr.Kesselman also points to research indicating that physical and mental inactivity can contribute to avariety of health problems, imposing a further strain on the public purse.[264] Dr. Kesselman says that to the extent that mandatory retirement decreases tax revenues andincreases public expenditures, it will put upward pressure on income tax rates for Canadians. These2011 FC 120 (CanLII)pressures will increasingly be felt as baby-boomers leave the workforce. The aging of theworkforce combined with increasing life expectancies means that mandatory retirement will have amuch greater adverse impact on the economy in the future than it has in the past.[265] Dr. Kesselman identifies several ways in which compensation, pension and employeebenefit plans can be modified so as to allow for the continued employment of older workers. Theseinclude eliminating long term disability insurance for employees over the age of 65 and reducingcoverage for employer-paid life insurance.[266] Dr. Kesselman says that “the case for allowing [compulsory mandatory retirement] tocontinue is based on economic analysis that presumes markets always produce desirable results”:Johnathan R. Kesselman, “Mandatory Retirement and Older Workers: Encouraging LongerWorking Lives” (2004) 200 C.D. Howe Institute Commentary 1, at p. 18. This presumption, he says,was accepted by the Supreme Court of Canada in McKinney, which found age discrimination in theform of mandatory retirement to be justifiable on the grounds of its asserted economic benefits.