Re : "Morton hits brakes on pension reform; Finance minister abruptly curtails Alberta demands in speech," The Journal, April 14.

As Alberta, other provinces and the federal government consider retirement savings system reform, it's worth remembering that one of the great dangers in a crisis state of mind is to reach for the most dramatic solution and ignore its underlying risks, while disregarding a more effective solution that lies closer within reach.

Building a whole new government pension program or doubling contributions to the Canada Pension Plan would be dramatic, but the devil is in the details.

Creating a federal government-run, defined contribution benefit program would build new retirement asset management capacity on the taxpayer's bill, while failing to match the cost and service efficiencies of the existing private sector pension management sector.

Doubling CPP contributions would take more money out of the pockets of employers and employees immediately, without providing comparable benefit increases for more than two decades.

Creating an Alberta-only solution would in addition create massive headaches for employers with workers in multiple provinces, and for workers if they move into or out of the province.

Meanwhile, we have the capacity to achieve a significant increase in the number of Canadians participating in workplace retirement savings programs if we allow employers to join multi-employer pension plans.

With a few simple, but key, changes to tax and financial legislation, we could get 80 per cent of private sector workers into a workplace-based savings plan.

Frank Swedlove, President , Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, Toronto