Whether by choice or circumstance, Canadians are increasingly turning to self-employment and non-traditional career paths, including independent consulting and fractional executive roles.
But while independence offers flexibility, it also shifts the responsibility for financial protection. Only 43.3% of self-employed Canadians have supplementary health coverage (beyond government health care) (Statistics Canada 2025), leaving their income, savings and retirement plans exposed if they're unable to work.
RBC Insurance’s Farzana Damji is seeing a pattern: most don’t plan for this financial gap until it’s too late. She talks about:
The key barriers to retirement readiness for self-employed and independent workers
What the current retirement landscape looks like for Canadians without traditional workplace benefits or a defined contribution pension plan – including for singles
Why structure matters more than contribution size when removing barriers to retirement readiness for self-employed and independent workers