The Times Colonist
March 14, 2004
Jim Gibson
Baby boomers never die, they just reinvent themselves. For the vanguard of 7.3 million due to retire over the next 20 years, life is about work and dreams.
Victoria's Marnie Crowe and Gabriola Island's Fred Greater could be poster children for the newly retired. They are among those setting the trend expected to be embraced by the 7.3 million baby boomers to follow over the next two decades.
No "gone fishin’ " or knitting on the porch for them.
They're both back at work.
In Crowe's case, it was almost the day after she retired at 65 last spring from the University of Victoria's theatre department.
She hung out her garden design business shingle, and now is calculating just what that means to her 2003 tax return.
A former Toronto Dominion bank manager, Greater, 60, retired in his mid-50s, caught up in the downsizing tsunami that swept through banking's middle management.
A hobby woodworker, he converted the family's Gabriola recreational property into a permanent residence, a retirement exercise requiring frequent supply runs to Nanaimo's Home Depot store. He now works there weekends helping other do-it-your-selfers. Unlike his bank job, he has no sales goals to hit or responsibilities for anyone but himself.
"What's not to like? I get to play with tools," says the outgoing Greater, happily working for a few dollars more than minimum wage.
He's not alone in age or circumstance at his sales job. In his department are a former RCMP staff sergeant, a former assistant fire chief, and several ex-realtors.
If Crowe and Greater are the poster children for back-to-work retirement then Prime Minister Paul Martin, 65, is the cover story of the year for the scrap mandatory-retirement movement.
In a year-end CBC interview, Martin questioned whether retirement at 65 is logical at a time when society is growing older, pension funds are threatened, and Canada faces labour shortages. Besides, the prime minister said mandatory retirement may be "forcing people to do things they don't want."
Mandatory retirement continues in the federal public sector as well as in those industries over which it has regulatory control such as transportation and broadcasting. Only three provinces - including B.C. - permit mandatory retirement at 65.
But its days are likely numbered, as public opinion already seems to have scrapped mandatory retirement ahead of the politicians and for that matter, organized labour. Buzz Hargrove, president of the Canadian Auto Workers, has argued against it, believing older workers will be unfairly targeted as employers focus more on their performance and absenteeism than on that of younger staff.
Closer to home, the B.C. Federation of Labour has no policy on mandatory retirement, according to director of policy, Phillip Legg. But it may after this fall's convention, where Legg expects a resolution will surface for debate.
In the past, the Fed, representing B.C.'s 500,000 - roughly half in the public sector - unionized employees, has pushed for better pensions at the bargaining table. Legg argues that killing mandatory retirement is tantamount to raising the retirement age, something the federation opposes.
If the politicians and labour leaders lag behind, then charter-challenging law firms such as Victoria's Arvay Finlay will likely prod them to catch up - not just on mandatory retirement but other age related cases brought by the demographically influential baby boomers.
The Canadian Supreme Court upheld mandatory retirement in several 1980s-era cases. However, Arvay Finlay lawyer Murray Rankin expects similar challenges two decades later would succeed. The 1980s argument of selfish "geezers" hanging onto jobs to the detriment of younger people is no longer relevant in the face of projected labour shortages.
"If all the baby boomers retire in the numbers we're used to, we won't have enough to fill their jobs," says UVic professor Michael Prince, an authority on pensions and retirement.
Last year, local police and fire departments had a preview of future labour shortages when pension changes sparked mass retirement. Usually, Victoria city police lose four to six officers annually to retirement, according to Sgt. Bill Trudeau, vice-president of the Victoria police union. Last year, 26 retired, which left the force competing with other B.C. forces for out-of-province replacements. New recruits were not enough. Besides, the B.C. Justice Institute can only train so many rookies at a time.
There's one solution to the expected nationwide labour shortage in all sectors. Simply, bump up immigration levels from today's estimated 250,000 annually to, a million as the baby boomers retire. But Prince suspects this would spark a political backlash. Nor would it uniformly solve the labour shortage as traditionally 48 per cent of all immigrants end up in the Toronto area.
One antidote to the labour shortage could be the economic reality faced by those unable to retire comfortably even at 65. An estimated 40 to 50 per cent of Canadian workers have no private pension, according to Prince. Those relying even in part on the Canada Pension Plan could well find it does not exist in its current form when they retire.
Life expectancy has risen considerably since the early 1900s when men barely made it into their 50s. On average today, men are reaching their late 70s and women their early 80s. There is no reason to believe the averages are leveling off. Quite the contrary.
But economics is not the prime motivator behind the emerging post-retirement trend. Nor is it likely to be for the demanding baby boomers, a generation committed to living differently from their parents.
"A lot of people are happy to get out of what they're doing," finds Victoria's Walter Donald, the 67-year-old vice-president of the international career counseling company, Right Axsmith.
They're asking themselves what they would do if they could start all over again. Many say definitely not the career they now have. Yet they don't want to stop working, just retire from the job they have. "A lot of people are making exit decisions based on their values rather than their needs," says Donald. "They want to work in different industry and want the kind of (work) environment they once had."
The banking world Greater left was not the one he entered 30 years earlier when decisions were still made at the branch level. Greater was happy to go as was Crowe after 17 years at UVic.
"They didn't send me out of there kicking and screaming," she says. Crowe stayed until 65 at a time when the national average retirement age is 61.6 - and 58 in the public sector.
If the former theatre publicist could live her life again, she would be a landscape architect, a career now requiring a lengthy university stretch. Instead, she prepared for retirement with a six-month garden design course at Comas College to formalize decades of creating gardens at her various houses.
Donald is all for mandatory retirement, but one lasting just 24 hours "and then go back to work".
It's not as though someone's health and intellect suddenly fall apart when they hit retirement age. There is a market for older people with years of work experience, says Donald, though it's more likely to be part-time or contract work.
"What do you have at 55 that you didn't have at 25?" Donald often asks those worried about post-retirement. "The answer? Thirty years of experience."
It's this attribute that he sees employers seeking in the future. An older, experienced employee saves the training costs of a young worker. Also, they're cheaper in terms of salary and benefit costs. Academe illustrates this now. Retired professors return as sessional lecturers for considerably less money than when tenured.
Currently Crowe and others can look ahead to a rewarding retirement in all its meanings. She not only has her garden design business, but has kept her membership alive in the stage workers union, which means periodic income. "I look forward to a fairly nice career doing what I like to do," says Crowe. She has the luxury to decide which garden design challenge or backstage job to accept.
What's uncertain is how many decades the 66-year-old Crowe can expect extra cash from her passions for gardening and theatre. Prince predicts about 20 per cent of the baby boomers will continue doing some sort of post-retirement work, until their late 60s.
Crowe views her cohorts as more youthful and active than their parents were in their 60s. Those baby boomers lining up behind her and Greater are more obsessive about staying physically and mentally younger than any previous generation.
Crowe believes her pensions, plus her RRSP kicking in at 69, are enough to live on should her extra income dry up. But the real dilemma facing her and many others is: Will this income still be enough a decade from now?
For Crowe it may need to stretch for at least another decade beyond that.
Her mother died at 91.
