What the model assumes about Canada

This page collects every Canada-specific number the model starts from: when the state pension begins and how it behaves, what healthcare and long-term care cost, what a retired household spends, and how tax is worked out. The planner prefills each of them, and you can change any of them during setup. Amounts are in CAD at today's prices, and the same data files drive the simulation itself, so a figure you read here is the figure your plan runs on.

The state pension

Starts at 65. The planner uses this both as your default retirement age and as the start age of your state pension.

Source: Government of Canada (2026). See it.

With inflation. Canada's Old Age Security pension is reviewed four times a year and raised in line with consumer prices. If prices ever fall, payments stay flat rather than going down.

Source: Government of Canada (2026). See it.

What a surviving partner keeps: 60% of the deceased's pension. The survivor can receive 60% of the deceased partner's CPP pension on top of their own, but the combined CPP payment is capped at the maximum single pension. The deceased's Old Age Security payment stops entirely.

Source: Government of Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada (2026). See it.

How the simulation pays and raises pensions: the income section of the technical reference. What changes at the first death: the couples section.

Healthcare

CA$1,804 a year for each person, at 65. Health spending outside long-term care: visits, medicines, glasses, dental work and any premiums you pay yourself. The planner starts from this figure and moves it as you age. The source published CA$3,121. The published figure counts a whole household, so we divided it down to one person.

Source: Statistics Canada (2025). See it.

How the model ages this figure: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Long-term care

CA$25,550 a year out of your own pocket if you need residential care. The state funds the care. You pay a capped fee plus your room and meals.

Source: Government of Ontario, Ministry of Long-Term Care (2026). See it.

The model does not add the whole charge on top of your budget: the groceries, and for renters the housing, that a care home replaces are credited back. How the care model works.

What a retired household spends

CA$1,290 + CA$530/mo for one person, CA$1,936 + CA$795/mo (derived) for a couple. Essential spending plus everything-else spending, each month, excluding housing and healthcare, which the planner asks about separately. The prefills come from Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023: table 11-10-0227-01 (age of reference person 65+) decomposed by household size using table 11-10-0224-01 (household type). The couple figure applies a documented factor of about one and a half to the single budget, because no couple budget is published.

Source: Statistics Canada, Survey of Household Spending 2023: table 11-10-0227-01 (age of reference person 65+) decomposed by household size using table 11-10-0224-01 (household type) (2026). See it.

What each budget covers and how spending changes with age: the expenses section of the technical reference.

Tax

The model recalculates your tax bill for every simulated year, using Canada's own scales, allowances and thresholds for the 2026 tax year, last read on 2026-07-29. The answers are checked against their rate data. Couples are assessed together where the rules allow it.

How Canada taxes a retirement plan lists every figure, the tax office page each one came from, and everything the model does not do there.

Everything we read

Every publication behind the pension, care, healthcare and budget figures above. The tax page carries its own references, one per figure.