Features
How Elliot Rodin was inspired to create a website offering advice on when to take your Canada Pension
By BERNIE BELLAN In 2019 Elliot Rodin happened to read an article about an authoritative U.S. report that provided a detailed analysis showing that 94% of Americans pick the wrong time to begin taking Social Security benefits. Reading about that report led to a shift in Rodin’s life.
Two years after closing down the business (Central Grain) that had been in his family’s hands for over 60 years, Rodin says that he then had time to think about the implications of that US report – and how it could translate into the Canadian scene.
Now, some 15 months after reading about that U.S. report, Rodin has launched a website titled HelpYouRetire.ca.
Long an active member of the Jewish community, Rodin says his most recent involvement in the community was helping to build Oholei Torah Day School at the Jewish Learning Centre in Winnipeg. He says he’s also been on the board of the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, the Board of Jewish Education, the Winnipeg Jewish Community Council, the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba, and had been a canvasser for the CJA for years, beginning under Ralph Hamovich. He was also a co-chairman of the Operation Exodus campaign.
Still, it’s a long way from running a cattle feed business and volunteering for different Jewish organizations to creating a website intended to help individuals plan their retirement dates.
Using very sophisticated analytical tools, HelpYouRetire.ca allows users to enter information about their age, the age at which they would like to retire, how much they would expect to receive in either CPP/QPP or OAS at a certain age, and how much more they could expect to receive if they were to postpone taking either CPP or OAS by just one year. This financial gain is also shown both as a percentage of future pension proceeds and as a percentage of the annual pension. For a small fee, all of this information can be shown in the “advanced analytics” for all years up to age 69. The information (which can be downloaded) is displayed in bar charts and a numeric chart together with the projected annual pensions.
This information is of great value for anyone thinking about their retirement planning. It can also be very helpful to those who have recently started taking either CPP/QPP or OAS pensions. A little publicized provision of these plans is that within six months of starting to receive one of these pensions, you can reverse your decision by paying back the monies received. In that event, you can take the related pension at a later date. The “advanced analytics” on HelpYouRetire.ca can give you information to assist in making that decision.
But, before we launch into a further exploration of how Elliot Rodin came to be involved in an endeavour that was far removed from selling cattle feed – which was the primary activity of Central Grain, we thought it might be interesting for readers to know something about Rodin’s life. During a long phone conversation we had Rodin told quite an interesting story how he ended up being involved with Central Grain for 60 years – when, had it not been for a fire there in 1966, he probably would have ended up doing something completely different.
While his recent foray into the world of retirement planning might be considered a radical departure for someone who spent so much time in the feed business, when you read about his educational background and his first entry into the business world, you’ll begin to understand how he developed the fine analytical skills that eventually lent themselves to creating HelpYouRetire.ca
Born in 1943, Rodin is the oldest of three children. His earliest years were spent living in his grandparents’ house on Bannerman Avenue, he says, along with his parents and, for a short while, his younger sister, Janis.
“My father (Maurice) was a fruit store proprietor,” Rodin says. “He would be up early in the morning to pick up the fruit. And because we were living at my grandparents’ house, he wasn’t paying any rent, so he was able to save some money. My mother (Lillian) was a university graduate who motivated all her children to work hard and succeed.”
In 1946, an opportunity arose for Rodin’s father to become, with $10,000, a one-third partner in Central Grain, in partnership with the Kanees and the Malchys. “The Malchy who was involved in the partnership died in 1951,” Rodin explains. “My dad and the Kanees bought out his interest and became half partners.
“In 1956, with the assistance of my grandfather, my dad bought out the Kanees and became the sole owner of Central Grain,” Rodin continues. “Soon after that time we moved to the south end – to 431 Queenston.” However, family connections were maintained as Sunday was the day when the whole family would go to the north end to visit relatives.
As a teenager Elliot says that his involvement in the Toppers chapter of BBYO was very important to him. He and his friends learned to organize themselves for a wide range of social, athletic, cultural and fund raising activities.
But, early on he had a taste of the world of business – both in his father’s company and in his own small scale business.
“When I was 16-17 I would go into the office and help with the bookkeeping – and other odd jobs around the place in the summertime,” he explains.
At the same time though, “I had my own business,” he adds. “I had a grass cutting business.” (At that point Rodin tells a story about how one of his customers didn’t want to pay him. Rodin says that he and his friend, Michael Nozick, proceeded to serve a small claims summons against that individual. Apparently, that was Michael Nozick’s first foray into the legal world. By the way, the customer ended up paying Rodin what he was owed.)
In the early 1960s Elliot began a period in his life that saw him acquire a solid education in finance, starting with his obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Manitoba in 1963.
Rodin continues his story: “I decided I wanted to go away for my MBA degree. I visited three different schools. I took a bus trip – about 43 hours, to Philadelphia, to the Wharton School of Finance, then to Boston, to the Harvard Business School, and then to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the University of Michigan.
“I had also put my application into Stanford. I wasn’t accepted at Stanford, but I was accepted at Wharton and Michigan, while Harvard said basically ‘We won’t accept you this year because you’re a little young, but we’ll promise you a place in next year’s class.’
“So I decided to wait a year. I worked in the family business for a year, then I went to the Harvard Business School because that was what I thought was the top place to go. I spent two years there and while I was there I also spent one summer with the Skelly Oil Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“I was working on special projects for the treasurer (of Skelly Oil). One of them was a computerized analysis of how to make oil drilling decisions, but it never got off the ground – even though the analysis was very sophisticated, because the exploration people would not accept it because they saw it as infringement on their turf.
“Still, I learned a lot from that particular project. It was my first serious analytical job that had some relationship to the work I was doing at Harvard (and, as Rodin explains later, proved to be of great value in his recent decision to create a website that emphasizes analytical tools.)
“As it turned out, the treasurer at Skelly wanted to hire me when I graduated, but at that time I couldn’t consider working in the States because I would have been drafted. The fact that I was a Canadian wouldn’t have made any difference.
“If I had been a student I wouldn’t get drafted. I also didn’t take any other opportunities that I had in the States. I limited myself to working in Canada.
“I ended up working for six months in Edmonton for a company called the Principal Group. While I worked there I had a lot of diverse responsibilities. I chose all their stocks for a new mutual fund they set up, and designed the text and written material for their first Annual Report. I also did all sorts of analysis for their mortgage operations.
“Then I got the news that the Central Grain plant had been hit by lightning and three-quarters of it had burned down.
“Central Grain was an animal feed processing plant. During the years that my dad was building it up we were basically selling pellet feed for export to the United Kingdom, to Japan, Taiwan. We would load railway cars with pellets, ship them to Thunder Bay, for destinations in the United Kingdom, or ship it to Vancouver for export.
“When this (the fire) happened in 1966, I had to come back to Winnipeg to help my dad settle all the insurance. There were a lot of issues and we rebuilt the plant, but all the key parts of the plant were burned down.
“I decided to settle down in Winnipeg. I took a job with Investors Group, which was similar to what I had in Edmonton. For the first year I was doing special projects, including a report on tax policy. We recommended how life insurance companies should be taxed. (This was before Investors bought Great West Life.) Most of our recommendations were adopted. We were competing with life insurance companies at that time and life insurance companies weren’t paying their fair share of taxes.
“After that year I did some product analyses. Then I started working for the securities department as an analyst. Over a period of time I became a portfolio manager. I ran the Investors international mutual fund. Then I ran the Investors pension accounts. We managed the Hudson’s Bay pension account.
“I was at Investors for 12 years (from 1968-80) and became a vice-president. I left to pursue some independent activities”, but joined Central Grain when it became clear that his dad needed Elliot’s help.
When he joined Central Grain full time in 1980, Rodin began focusing on broadening the markets for the company’s feed pellets. Markets in Western Canada and the United States were cultivated, but he says that he always made sure that the needs of his regular customers were attended to.
“I never took advantage of the fact that there might be a drought in Southern California, for instance, and short my customers in Saskatchewan because I depended on my regular customers for the long haul,” Rodin says.
“I would work long hours if necessary. If a truck came in late and had to be loaded, I would load the truck myself.
Although Central Grain had become a very successful business, Rodin says that the “maximum number of employees we had at one time was no more than 15. We had one truck, but for the most part we hired other trucking companies. We had a machine shop, but the stuff we couldn’t do – we hired other machine shops to do.
“We bought basically the ‘clean-outs’ from grain – all the leftover product. It was all categorized and separated out and properly blended to make different qualities of feed pellets. There was no plant in North America that shipped product as far as we did. We used to ship up to 2,000 miles. Most feed companies ship up to 200 miles.
“The business ran until about three and a half years ago. We were gradually losing customers for reasons that I can’t quite figure out. I needed additional volumes because the company had substantial overhead – for repairs and maintenance.
“So we started to do fuel pellets. We became the second largest manufacturer of fuel pellets in Manitoba – as a substitute for coal, using the same screenings – but the lower quality screenings. The top quality screenings were turned into top quality feed for cattle and bison.
“I was reasonably successful at doing this, but at the end of the day the plant was an old plant. Remember, it was rebuilt in 1966. What was new in 1966 was not new 50 years later. The costs of maintaining the plant to the standards we had to maintain were going up and up.
“Finally, I made the decision that I’m going to have to close it down. I thought: ‘If I can’t make a living at this, then nobody can.’ I decided I’d have to tear the whole place down – and that’s what I did.
“I realized I was getting older and if I didn’t do it I didn’t want to have my children to have the burden of doing it. So, everything that I had built up over 50 years was torn down. I sold whatever equipment that I could, but the rest all went for scrap.
To return to the initial reason for doing this article, Rodin explains his motivation in wanting to create HelpYouRetire.ca. As we already noted, the catalyst was reading about that U.S. report about social security and “that 90% of people in the United States take their pensions at the wrong time.”
He adds though, that “an additional underlying factor in my motivation is that I missed the daily rewards (not the aggravation) that I got from my job running Central Grain. I loved selling and enjoyed my interactions with customers. At the end of the day when I had loaded four big trucks I came home with a feeling of accomplishment. So, I was primed for another challenge where I could get these feelings back. With this website, I am now focusing on marketing where I have to sell myself and the site.”
I asked Rodin whether there was anything in particular in his background that lent itself to the kind of analytical exercise upon which he was to embark.
He answers that “a course that I took at Harvard Business School and the work that I did at Skelly Oil were very relevant to this process.”
I said though “that it sounds like you would need the same background as an actuary” in order to undertake the project into which Rodin has entered.
Rodin agreed, saying “you’re hitting upon a very key point when you say that, but there are a lot actuaries around. Nobody thought of doing what I’m doing.
“I guess part of the answer is most actuaries are fully employed. There aren’t a lot sitting around thinking about what they can do to help Canadians.
“You have to remember that I spent 13 years as a securities analyst and a portfolio manager, so my mind works in a certain way. Nothing that I did at Central Grain though related to this project.”
I asked what were the first steps that Rodin took in developing his website.
He says: “The first steps were that I needed to see whether I could develop the necessary mathematical models to do what I had in mind. Once I had the mathematical models I began working on the structure of a website that would put these mathematical models into practice.
“I was told by various people that setting up a website is not all that difficult.” (Boy, were they ever wrong when it came to this website!)
After an initial contact with someone who was working on their PhD and thought they might be able to produce the kind of website Rodin was looking to create didn’t pan out, a company in Ottawa that had built a similar kind of website agreed to take on the project.
“The idea was that it was going to take a few months” to create the website, Rodin explains.
“But from the time we started up toward the end of February (just before the pandemic hit Canada in full force) it took until the end of August” to finalize the site.
“Every aspect along the way had to be just right – from the mathematics to the functionality. It had to be there so that even people who don’t know much about computers or websites would be able to use this website. Finally, we reached the point where I’m extremely happy with the site.”
So, having read this far, you might ask yourself: “Why should I go to HelpYouRetire.ca?”
It’s quite an easy site to navigate. As has already been explained, simply enter some basic information and the site will provide you with some quick results about how postponing your decision to begin taking either CPP/QPP or OAS by one year will benefit you – or might have benefitted you if you’re already taking your pension.
Then, as Rodin explained, if you’re wanting to know more about how much more your pension would be affected if you decide to wait even longer to begin taking your pension, for a fee you can obtain access to even more comprehensive analytical tools that will show that. The results might surprise you – and it may end up being one of the most important decisions you might ever make with regard to retirement planning.
Features
Rabbi Gary Zweig’s new book provides humorous and moving accounts of making minyans in unlikely circumstances
By MYRON LOVE The recitation of the kaddish is a central tenet of Jewish religious life. Even members of our community who are largely secular will likely recite the words of the kaddish for a parent, sibling or spouse at some point in their lives – even if only at the grave site.
The kaddish can only be recited publicly in the presence of a minyan – a gathering of ten (men in the Orthodox tradition. The number, as explained by Rabbi Gedalia (Gary Zweig), stems from the number of spies – as written in the Torah – whom Moshe rabbenu sent into the promised land and who came back with negative reports as compared to the two spies – one of whom was Joshua – who said that the land was flowing with milk and honey.
It is this challenge of putting together minyans for a mourner to recite the kaddish in different locales and circumstances – when a minyan in a shul is not possible – that is the subject of Zweig’a newly released book, “Kaddish Around the World” – a 90-plus page compilation of short stories – some humourous, some heartwarming – of successful efforts to recruit enough daveners for a kaddish minyan, ranging in time and space from a Super Bowl game in San Diego to the middle of a game reserve in South Africa to a Jewish museum in Cordoba in Spain – in a city largely devoid of Jews.
Zweig, who hails from Toronto, was in Winnipeg over Yom Tov to lead services – along with Toronto-based Chazan Manny Aptowitser – at the Chavurat Tefila Talmud Torah Synagogue. On the Tuesday just before Yom Kippur, the synagogue hosted an evening to provide the rabbi with a venue to discuss his new book – a sequel to his first book, “Living Kaddish,” which he released in 2007 (and has been translated into Russian and Spanish).
Zweig is one of the original Aish Hatorah-trained rabbis – having attained his smicha in 1982 from Rabbi Noah Weinberg, the founder of Aish Hatorah. He (Zweig) is much travelled, himself having led Yom Tov services in such exotic locales as Bermuda, Barbados and Curacao in the Caribbean, Mexico and Sweden.
Zweig noted that he was inspired to write “Living Kaddish” after his mother passed away in 2002 when, on one occasion, he was not able to find a minyan so that he could say kaddish.
In his presentation at the Chavurat Tefila, he observed that the first Jew to mention kaddish is purported to be Rueven – about 3,500 years ago – on the passing of his father, Yaacov (Israel). About 900 C.E., Zweig continued, kaddish became part of the liturgy and, 200 years later, was included in the siddur.
It is interesting, he noted, that kaddish is said not for the deceased, but, rather, the living. There is no mention of the Lord in the kaddish either. Kaddish is actually a prayer for hope and the future.
For a parent, one is required to say kaddish three times a day – morning, afternoon and evening – for 11 months. For a sibling, child (God forbid), relative or others, the requirement is just 30 days.
One of the stories in “Kaddish Around the World” tells of one of Zweig’s own experiences – after his father died in 20201 at the age of 101. The author happened to be at a family bar mitzvah in Orlando several months later. He fully expected that in a city with a Jewish population the size of Orlando, he wouldn’t have any trouble putting together a minyan for a Sunday morning. He felt even more confident when he noticed that an AMOR Rabbis convention was being held at the same hotel. On inquiring which sort of rabbis these were, he learned that AMOR stood for “Association of Messianic Rabbis”.
Come Sunday morning, most of the bar mitzvah guests had gone home. He could only muster eight for the minyan. He thought he could try the messianic group in the hope that some of them may have been born Jewish. Four of the group offered to help. A Chabad rabbi suggested that Zweig ascertain that each had two Jewish parents. Two qualified.
Zweig quoted one of the two messianic rabbis who said, after the service that ”this was the most moving service I have ever experienced.”
“Maybe Hashem brought me to that particular hotel at that particular time so that I could provide them with little spark of what Judaism is about,” Zweig said.
Another of the stories in the book concerns a shopkeeper in an American mall where many of the other store owners were also Jewish. The individual, Yossi, needed a minyan for mincha (the afternoon prayer) but couldn’t afford to close his business. He figured he could round up enough of the other store keepers to form a minyan. Everyone he approached was willing to come if he were to be the tenth. (In my own years organizing minyans, that was something I heard often enough – “call me if I will be the tenth”). Yossi’s solution was to assure each one he asked that, yes, he would be the tenth.
“Kaddish Around the World” is available on Amazon and also in digital ebook format and as an audio book.
In addition to being a rabbi and author, Zweig also is a singer/songwriter working in his own genre – Jewish rock and roll. He has a band called “The Kiddush Club,” and a CD called “TOYS.” In addition, he has recently launched a YouTube channel called “Living Kaddish”.
Features
The Gaza Peace Plan is not a Done Deal, but an Opening
By HENRY SREBRNIK (Oct. 23, 2025) The idea that Hamas will voluntarily disarm, that international forces will deploy in the Gaza Strip, and that the process of building a Palestinian government by people like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which a disarmed Hamas does not participate, are false hopes, if not fantasies. But does this mean U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan was useless? Of course not.
Trump understood the necessity of bringing the war to an end. But he also believed that endless debate among experts or, worse, historian and lawyers, would never produce an agreement. He presented an offer – actually, an ultimatum – to Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas that neither could refuse: immediate, unconditional and complete release of all hostages and missing persons, something the Israeli public longed for, in exchange for a final end to the war, which a humbled Hamas needed.
Two years of war has left Hamas weaker than it had been in decades. Israeli bombardments had shattered the group’s military capabilities and depleted its arsenals. In many neighborhoods, control had drifted to local clan networks and tribal councils. This hinted at something that could one day replace Hamas’s iron grip. To prevent this, Hamas has been ruthlessly murdering all potential rivals in the areas of Gaza it controls since the ceasefire went into effect.
Despite the severe degradation of its military capabilities during the war, Hamas still has more soldiers and weapons than all its rival factions in Gaza combined. Hamas has managed to redeploy approximately 7,000 militants to reassert control over the territory. They have publicized photographs and videos of their forces murdering and torturing; the victims include women and children.
The ceasefire is a temporary reprieve for Hamas: a chance to regroup, rearm, and prepare for the next round of fighting. In Islamist political thought there’s a word for it, hudna — a temporary truce with non-Muslim adversaries that can be discarded as soon as the balance of power shifts. Then the time for jihad will arrive again. Hamas was established in 1987 and isn’t going to disappear.
In fact Hamas also says it expects an interim International Transitional Authority to hire 40,000 Hamas employees, and Hamas spokesman Basem Naim says he expects its fighters to be integrated into a post-transition Palestinian state.
Still, Trump has succeeded in ending the current war in Gaza, where Joe Biden failed. Biden’s national security team, drawn almost entirely from his supposed expert class, didn’t even see the crisis coming. Just five days before the attack, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had published an article in Foreign Affairs in which he wrote that “the region is quieter than it has been for decades.”
Biden also had insulted the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, by publicly condemning the 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And, of course, there was Biden’s poor relationship with Netanyahu, and his chronic inability to get the Israeli prime minister to do what he wanted.
By contrast, Trump returned to office with substantially more influence in both the Gulf and Israel, based on his first-term successes in the Middle East, especially the Abraham Accords (for which he’s never been praised by his political enemies).
Four Arab countries formally recognized Israel, beginning with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, followed by Sudan and Morocco. The next stage was intended to include Saudi Arabia. One motive put forward by some analysts for the October 7 attacks was that they were intended to provoke Israel into a response that would derail Saudi Arabia’s admission.
Instead of sitting Israelis and Arabs in a room and expecting them to negotiate an outcome, Trump’s approach has been to exert leverage through other players in the region, especially, Egypt, Turkey, and – most importantly – Qatar.
In Jerusalem, they call Qatar “the spoiler state.” Israelis describe the emirate as two trains running behind the same engine. One, led by the Qatari ruler’s mother and brother, supports the Muslim Brotherhood and is an unmistakable hater of Israel. The other, led by the prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani and several other senior figures, seeks rapprochement with the West.
The Qataris were shocked when Israeli jets on Sept. 9 conducted an airstrike in Doha targeting the leadership of Hamas. They then signed onto Trump’s peace plan at a meeting in New York Sept. 23, hosted by Trump and Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Ibn Hamad Al Thani, and attended by the leaders of eight Arab states, along with members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.
Netanyahu was then browbeaten into accepting the plan (and also forced to apologize to the Emir for the airstrike). It was somewhat ironic that the airstrike made the peace plan possible. As well, Trump’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June gave this negotiation some very sharp teeth.
“If you would rather leave peacemaking to the historians and diplomats, then you may wait a long time for wars to end,” suggested Niall Ferguson of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in an Oct. 15 Free Press article. His advice? Go to the “deal guys: They get the job done.”
In a sense, both Israel and Hamas had accomplished their goals. Israel had broken the Iranian axis of terror by eliminating Hezbollah and Hamas as a fighting force, along with the Iranian nuclear threat. Hamas had succeeded in luring Israel into a trap that led it to become hated and isolated around the world. This included the labelling of Israel as genocidal and the global call for a Palestinian state.
The rest of the 20-point peace plan will be addressed in a step-by-step fashion. Meanwhile, Israel must ensure that it retains freedom of action in Gaza, by decisive action against any attempt by Hamas to rebuild its army, its rockets, its battalions and its divisions.
Henry Srebrnik is a professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island.
Features
Why Fitness Routines Fall Apart — and How to Rebuild Yours
Every spring, gyms see a flood of hopeful faces. New shoes, fresh playlists, unwavering intentions, by mid-summer? Half of them vanish into the fog of abandoned routines. The story repeats year after year until it starts to feel almost scripted. Why does enthusiasm evaporate? The easy answer involves willpower but that explanation misses the point. Habits don’t fail because people are weak. Life stress, boredom, and monotony ruin routines. Timely lever pulls can change narratives. The hardest part is persevering when motivation wanes.
Mistaking Motivation for Momentum
Most chase that opening surge, the lightning strike of motivation, but then stop searching once enthusiasm fizzles. A scroll through sites like PUR Pharma (pur-pharma.is/) or a glimpse of an influencer’s progress triggers a burst of action: new workout gear ordered, plans scribbled in planners destined for dusty drawers. Yet momentum fades when small setbacks pop up (a late meeting here, rainy weather there). Real progress comes from building systems stronger than any fleeting pep talk. Those who frame fitness as something owed to motivation end up back at square one every time life interrupts, which it always does.
Overcomplicating Everything
It’s tempting to turn wellness into a science fair project with spreadsheets and specialized equipment lined up on day one. This is the allure of complexity disguised as seriousness, a new diet paired with seven types of supplements and four color-coded bottles. Simplicity gets lost in the noise almost instantly. Most successful routines rely on two principles: keep it simple and keep showing up even when everything else is chaos outside those gym walls. Anyone insisting that perfection is required before taking step one has already constructed an excuse not to begin at all.
Forgetting Fun Completely
Who decided exercise must hurt or look like punishment? Somewhere along the line, fun got swapped out for grind culture and “no pain, no gain.” That isn’t just unappealing, it’s unsustainable over months or years. If sessions feel like torture devices borrowed from medieval times, nobody should be surprised when commitment falters fast. Seek activities that actually spark some joy or curiosity, a dance class instead of yet another treadmill session, maybe, or play a pickup game rather than slogging through solo circuits again and again.
Ignoring Recovery (and Reality)
Sleep deprivation, disguised as discipline, fools anyone, except perhaps uncritical Instagram followers. Ignoring recovery turns ambition into tiredness faster than any missed session. Because bodies break without rest, routines must breathe with owners. Cycling, real leisure, and honest self-checks regarding weekly goals build endurance, not continual pushing.
Conclusion
Change rarely arrives by force alone but usually grows quietly from patterns repeated imperfectly over time, even if last month looked nothing like this week so far. Drop the hunt for nonstop inspiration. Instead of breaking behaviors at the first hint of stress or boredom, build habits that last. People who rebuild methodically after every stumble or detour make progress, not those who peak and then fall.