Only about half of all employed Canadians who filed tax returns put money into private retirement plans in 2008, a slight decline over 1997, according to a study released Friday by Statistics Canada.

The Statistics Canada study comes two days after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced public hearings over the next five weeks on improving Canada's retirement income system. (Pawel Dwulit/Canadian Press)

The federal agency said just more than 8.9 million people put money into private retirement plans that include RRSPs and employer-sponsored plans. That's a drop from 54 per cent 11 years earlier.

The study came as the federal and provincial governments begin looking at ways to reform the country's pension system, widely viewed as inadequate to support a population with a growing proportion of older people.

On Wednesday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced a series of hearings on Canadians' views on whether the country's retirement income system needs to be improved, and, if so, how that should be done.

Those will include public town hall meetings, roundtables and online consultations over the next five weeks.

Consultations to span country

The town hall meetings will be held in Charlottetown, Quebec City and Richmond, B.C. Discussions with stakeholders, experts and government representatives will take place in St. John’s, Winnipeg and London, Ont.

There are three options to be discussed at those consultations, and when the federal and provincial finance ministers meet to discuss pensions in May:

• Create a Canada Supplementary Pension Plan in which Canadians would automatically be enrolled increase their savings.
• Expand the current Canada Pension Plan to produce a higher level of pensions.
• Change some of the restrictive rules in pensions regulations and tax laws that would allow the financial services industry to offer products to encourage people to save for retirement.

'If we're going to make some significant changes, you do need a lot of population buy-in.'—Keith Ambachtsheer, director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management

Keith Ambachtsheer, director of the Rotman International Centre for Pension Management at the University of Toronto, told CBC News the Statistics Canada study shows the need for Canadian to participate in the government's pension consultations.

"If we're going to make some significant changes," he said, "you do need a lot of population buy-in. This can't be a bunch of politicians or experts deciding by themselves what's best for the population."

Ambachtsheer said there is a precedent.

When concerns were raised in the 1990s about the solvency of the CPP, consultations between Ottawa and the provinces led to a decision to double contribution and the plan is now financially stable.

Those most at risk of not having enough in retirement, he said, are the 75 per cent of middle-income Canadians who aren't in private savings plans that automatically deduct contributions from income.

"Some of them are doing fine, on their own," he said. "A lot aren't."

RRSP contributions fall

Statistics Canada said there was also a decrease in the share of employed tax filers who contributed to a registered retirement savings plan during the decade.

In 1997, 41 per cent of employed tax filers participated in an RRSP; by 2008, the proportion had declined to 34 per cent.

At the same time, the share of employed tax filers participating in employer-sponsored pension plans remained stable at 32 per cent.

Just over 5.7 million employed tax filers participated in an employer-sponsored pension plan in 2008, with women slightly outnumbering men, and climbing.