 When I think back on this past January 19th, I remember two things. First, that I had the honour to interview a member of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on the future of Scottish pensions. Second, I remember that the politician in question had to ask me, aren't you a bit young to be studying pensions? Today I'd like to convince you that I, a 22-year-old Canadian, didn't waste my time learning the intricacies of a system meant for 70-year-old Scots. But let's back up for a moment. Why am I studying Scottish pensions at all? Well, for one, I've always been fascinated by pensions themselves. Barring any catastrophes, we can all expect one day to be too old to work and subsequently be forced to rely on some sort of pension to survive. In essence, pension policy is a safeguard for an inevitable future. But why Scotland? Well, Scotland today provides students with policy with a fairly unique opportunity, the ability to study a break-up of a modern welfare state. While it was just announced last week that the Government of Scotland would press for a second independence referendum, it's been fairly clear for some time that it would be an eventuality and a very likely one at that, Scotland may face independence. If Scotland does become independent though, it would only become the second time a modern welfare state would have split up and so I can't help but wonder what would happen to pensions. As a key pillar of the welfare state, pension policy would likely be a key issue in any debate over Scottish independence and frankly speaking it was at the very rate in the last independence referendum in 2014 there was a heavy emphasis on pension policy. And while there are a bunch of sources available for that referendum, I'm afraid that there weren't any that would suggest what might happen in the forthcoming one. In turn, to solve this problem, I ended up conducting a number of face-to-face interviews in January of this year, meeting with bureaucrats, politicians, and think tank analysts in the United Kingdom. And a few things became relatively apparent over the result of the course of these interviews, excuse me. First was that Scotland was chafing under British rule not so much just about national pride but for the opportunity to create a more just society. And you think that if any situation would allow for the creation of more just society, it would be independence allowing for reform. However, my second finding which really constituted the bulk of my research was that there was no way that Scotland would be able to implement any major pension policy changes in the short term. In order to maintain their welfare state that is to ensure a degree of surface continuity, Scotland would be forced to adopt most if not all of the institutions currently in the United Kingdom with regards to pension policy, simultaneously resulting in enforcing upon them the same structural barriers to reform that exist in the United Kingdom and resulted in that own various troubles in the system and subsequently preventing Scotland from turning into that very more just society. So why does it matter that I, a 22-year-old Canadian, studied assisting in for 70-year-old Scott? It matters because my research has shown that independence may or may not actually be independence and that freedom doesn't necessarily mean freedom from institutions. Those carry on whether we like it or not. Excuse me and thank you very much.