The Canadian Press

Michael Ignatieff unveiled proposals Tuesday aimed at providing urgent help to people left in “catastrophic” financial straits due to Canada’s pension “crisis.”

But if the situation is so urgent, critics questioned why Ignatieff waited until just before Parliament’s six-week Christmas break to echo proposals made by NDP Leader Jack Layton two months ago.

Layton’s office issued a mock Liberal news release entitled: “How to write Liberal policy: Take an NDP release, put the leader’s name on it and re-announce it a couple of months later.”

Ignatieff said that unlike the NDP, the Liberals are a government in waiting and must be more responsible in drafting policy proposals.

“We’ve been working on this for more than a year. These are complicated issues so you want to get them right,” he said.

Ignatieff said the proposals were also timed to stir debate in advance of the Dec. 17-18 pension summit of federal and provincial finance ministers in Whitehorse.

The Liberals are proposing a three-pronged approach:

• Creation of a supplementary Canada Pension Plan, to enable Canadians to voluntarily invest extra money.

• Give employees with stranded pensions following the bankruptcy of their company the option of having the CPP take over management of their pension assets.

• Give Canadians on long-term disability pensions priority status as creditors in cases of bankruptcy.

“We’re already in a pensions crisis and as our population gets older, this problem is going to get worse,” said Ignatieff.

“We don’t want more talking. We need some action right now.”