TORONTO, Ont. – According to the latest Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) survey, more and more Ontarians are opposed to the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP).

The survey showed 90% of business owners are opposed to the pension plan – up 86% since the last time CFIB asked its members in 2014. Support has dropped from 8% to 5% over the same period.

CFIB noted that these results mirror those of recent public opinion polls which show that support is down for ORPP.

“The more people learn about the government’s expensive and unneeded pension scheme, the more they see how flawed it is,” said Plamen Petkov, CFIB vice-president for Ontario. “Ontarians are realizing that the ORPP isn’t going to help them in retirement as it would take 40 years for contributors to receive full benefits. All the pension tax will do in the meantime is hurt the province’s small business community and put jobs at risk.”

Seventy percent of Ontario’s small business owners say that the ORPP will force them to freeze salaries, while more than half report that they will have to eliminate positions to deal with the added costs.

“The government consistently tells us that they’ve consulted with the small business community on ORPP implementation,” said Nicole Troster, CFIB director for provincial affairs for Ontario. “When you have nine out of 10 small business owners telling you they outright oppose your plan, and you continue to push it, you either aren’t consulting, or you aren’t listening.”