There's a lot of information about transferring pensions to Canada, but I can't find anything about starting a Canadian pension and what the options are (Private / Company Pension, State Pension, etc.) plus what % of income they will cost. Probably not putting the right criteria in the search - can anyone help please?

Thanks,

Most companies (as opposed to Federal or Provincial Govt operations) do not run pensions per se. but offer something called a "RRSP" or Registered Retirement Savings Plan. Essentially you contribute a % of your salary to this and the company matches it. Your contributions are tax deductable (like pension contributions in the UK) and your employer can arrange to have them taken out of your pretax pay.

You can put in additional contributions to a RRSP but this is linked to how much you earned the year previously. For most (he said sticking his neck out) of us hitting the contribution limit after that first year of working is not going to be a problem. A RRSP is kind of like a money purchase pension scheme in the UK. You can open your own RRSP instead of or in addition to a company one.

Final salary schemes are rare things in Canada and, as I say, are most usually found in government operations.

HTH,
AX

Pretty much what Atlantic Ex-Pat has just said.

The current year's RSP contribution limit is 18% of your previous year's "Earned Income" to a maximum of $21,000 (2009) plus any unused contributions carried forward from previous years.

This amount would be reduced by any pension adjustment reported by your employer i.e if you were a member of your companies Registered Pension Plan or Deferred Profit Sharing Plan.

There are also two mandatory federal pensions.

Old Age Pension (OAP) is a pension funder by Income Tax and pays a maximum of $516.96/month

Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is funded through payroll deductions and pays a maximum of $908.75/month

Both depend on the number of years in Canada and with CPP the higher the earned income the greater the pension income.

I recieve both plus the UK DSS pension.

http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/oas-cpp/index.shtml