Pre-Budget Consultations · September 2026
A retirement asset for every child, beginning at birth.
Compound Canada is a Canadian public-purpose initiative developing a national retirement platform that begins at birth. This submission sets out two recommendations to the Government of Canada, and the case behind them.
Compound Canada recommends that the Government of Canada:
As an immediate step, provide transitional treatment for philanthropic, employer and other permitted contributions so initial accounts can compound without creating annual tax or reporting obligations for recipient families. Develop the purpose-built federal tax treatment required for future national scale.
Make the universal federal seed a national commitment. At current birth levels, the maximum direct federal capitalization requirement is approximately $365.7 million annually.
Every Canadian child should begin life with a retirement asset of their own.
A $1,000 investment at birth gives every eligible child a financial starting point and the one advantage that cannot be recreated later: time. A child whose family has little capacity to save should still have decades of compounding working in their favour.
The account is beneficially owned by the child, professionally managed, portable and preserved for retirement, with access beginning at age 55 under the current design. Family and friends, employers, philanthropy and other approved contributors can add capital over time.
For the child, it means beginning life as an owner, with an asset that can grow alongside them. For Canada, it becomes long-duration investment capital with decades to work.
The opportunity is to begin part of retirement capital formation at birth, mobilize additional private capital around it, and turn time into national economic infrastructure.
Canada recorded 365,737 live births in 2024. At $1,000 per child, one annual birth cohort requires approximately $365.7 million in federal capitalization, creating a universal starting stake with an investment horizon of at least 55 years. Philanthropic, employer, family and other permitted contributions can deepen the child's asset without increasing the federal seed.
Relative to the $502.8 billion in budgetary spending set out in the 2026–27 Main Estimates, the maximum annual federal commitment represents about 0.07%, or roughly 73 cents for every $1,000.
Compound Canada is proceeding toward launch, targeting an initial $50 million philanthropic capitalization to seed up to 50,000 accounts. Regulated delivery relationships and employer contribution channels are being developed in parallel.
Private capital can begin the model. Federal participation makes the starting point universal.
Every participating child begins with a professionally managed investment account, regardless of whether their family already invests, understands markets or has money available to set aside.
As the child grows, a visible asset creates a practical way to learn about saving, investing and compounding through something they own. That ownership can support lifelong financial literacy.
Participation can build on existing birth-registration, SIN and federal benefit-administration processes, rather than creating a new identity system solely for the account.
The same structure advances several federal priorities at once.
Recent federal policy has emphasized greater pension investment, capital formation and productive investment in Canada. The Canada Strong Fund similarly combines public seed capital, private investment, independent professional governance and direct participation by Canadians in financial returns.
Compound Canada fits that direction. Create long-duration individually owned capital at birth, crowd in private capital, and give Canadians ownership of the asset and participation in its returns.
Across successive birth cohorts, individual retirement accounts become a national pool of long-duration capital capable of participating in Canadian public markets and, over time, eligible productive assets including infrastructure, innovation and growth opportunities.
Under Compound Canada's central national scenario, the $1,000 starting seed is supplemented by approximately $750 in average annual contributions, expressed in constant purchasing power, during accumulation. At the individual level, the same central illustrative scenario produces approximately $1.33 million in nominal account assets by age 55.
Across successive cohorts, the national pool reaches approximately $6.09 trillion in nominal gross retirement-purpose assets by model year 55, when the first cohort reaches age 55, and approximately $14.20 trillion by model year 65, when that cohort reaches age 65.
Using a 25% Canadian allocation solely to illustrate scale, approximately $3.55 trillion of the model-year-65 nominal gross pool would be allocated to Canadian markets and eligible productive Canadian assets.
Start building the capital base now while Canada develops the investment opportunities capable of attracting it over time. The capital can support productive investment during accumulation before becoming private retirement capital for the Canadian who owns it.
A national system intended to endure across generations requires clear separation of public purpose, investment governance and regulated financial activity.
A not-for-profit entity protects Compound Canada's mission and sets the program and investment-governance framework. An independent Investment Committee establishes the investment mandate and selects and oversees the professional asset manager. Appropriately regulated financial providers hold and administer the child accounts and perform regulated financial activities.
A separate operating company provides neutral infrastructure across participating financial institutions and contribution channels, including portability and reporting. Financial providers can change and compete while the child's ownership and account continuity endure.
Compound Canada itself does not custody client assets, execute trades, provide individual investment advice or make portfolio-management decisions.
Current modelling indicates that long-run federal fiscal effects could substantially exceed the cost of the initial seed. Under the central national case, cumulative core federal fiscal effects over the illustrative 2027–2126 horizon are approximately $554 billion in constant 2026 dollars, against $36.57 billion of cumulative federal seed funding.
On an undiscounted cumulative basis, that is equivalent within the model to a 15.15× fiscal-effects-to-seed-cost ratio, alongside a 5.17% real federal fiscal IRR.
The core fiscal case models two existing federal retirement-income channels. GIS effects use an official-data-calibrated aggregate expected-exposure and benefit-displacement methodology applied to the residence-adjusted eligible population. OAS recovery is modelled using age-specific taxable retirement withdrawals and ESDC pensioner income and recovery-tax data, with mortality-only eligibility.
The same federal investment therefore creates a child-owned asset at birth, long-term investment capital through accumulation, and the potential for meaningful fiscal offsets in retirement.
Tax treatment should preserve the account's defining advantage, time, without creating new complexity for families.
Investment income and gains should compound without an annual taxable event while assets remain invested for retirement. After-tax private contributions should not be taxed again. Under the current design, the federal seed and accumulated investment growth would be taxable to the beneficiary when withdrawn, with appropriate treatment of the beneficiary's after-tax contribution basis.
The permanent framework should draw on the broad architecture of existing registered plans such as RESPs and RDSPs, with tax-deferred compounding, institutionally administered reporting and appropriate taxation on withdrawal. Universality should not require financial or tax sophistication.
The launch also requires transitional treatment. Because Compound Canada is designed to receive contributions from multiple sources, the transitional framework should address any attribution, tax and reporting consequences without placing those obligations on recipient families. That treatment should remain in place for participating launch accounts until the permanent framework applies to them.
The principle is simple. Use a small portion of retirement-related fiscal capacity today to begin building retirement security at birth.
Higher-income seniors already repay part or all of their OAS through the existing recovery tax, reducing the government's net OAS cost. As the program moves toward national scale, government could consider separate spending authority for retirement assets at birth, calibrated to a portion of that fiscal offset, without changing OAS eligibility, entitlement or recovery-tax rules.
CRA reported approximately $3.585 billion in OAS benefit recoveries in 2024–25. A $1,000 seed for one current annual birth cohort requires approximately $365.7 million, about 10% of one year's recoveries.
This potential funding pathway is separate from the long-run fiscal effects described above, which arise decades later as Compound Canada beneficiaries themselves enter retirement.
No senior would give up OAS to fund the program. The proposal does not rely on OAS non-uptake, and GIS and the Allowance remain fully protected.
Compound Canada brings together stronger retirement security, broader financial ownership and a new source of long-term capital for Canada.
Every Canadian child can begin life with an asset of their own, not because of what their parents earn or know about investing, but because Canada chose to give them a starting stake. Every cohort can deepen Canada's capital base. And the decades between birth and retirement can work for the child and for the country.
The opportunity is to give every Canadian child a stake at the beginning of life, and let time do the rest.
Compound Canada is a Canadian public-purpose initiative founded by Steve Dixon, who is joined by co-founder Julia Kassam, to develop a national retirement platform beginning at birth. It is engaging philanthropic, employer and regulated financial-sector partners toward launch.
Its structure combines not-for-profit mission and independent investment governance with regulated financial providers, an independently selected professional asset manager and neutral multi-provider infrastructure.
Compound Canada is targeting an initial $50 million philanthropic capitalization to seed up to 50,000 accounts while developing employer contribution channels and a pathway to national scale.
Figures described as illustrative or modelled are scenario outputs based on stated assumptions, not forecasts, guarantees, or investment returns to participants. Actual outcomes depend on participation, contributions, market performance, tax treatment and future policy design.