Members of the Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa pension will be voting this fall on whether to join the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology pension plan. The organization, which has been in place since July 1972, is considering the merger as a way to mitigate the defined benefit plan’s impact on its operating budget, says […]
Nova Scotia is following in the footsteps of a number of other provinces by looking into its funding framework for defined benefit pension plans. Like most jurisdictions in Canada, Nova Scotia requires defined benefit plans to be valued and funded on both a going-concern and a solvency basis. Under the review, the province is considering […]
While defined contribution plans were a small piece of the pension market when Benefits Canada first rolled off the presses in 1977, the Co-operative Superannuation Society had already been operating for almost 40 years by that point. Founded in 1939 in Saskatoon, the society’s pension plan is one of the country’s oldest and largest defined […]
Amidst all of the talk about transparency in the investment industry, the dialogue around refundable fees has been on the quiet side. Also known as symmetric fees, they go up when the performance is good and down when it’s bad. Take a manager earning a fixed fee of 0.65 per cent with a symmetric component […]
New DB pension proposals in Quebec, Ontario tackle annuity purchases.
New draft regulations published in Quebec this summer address policies around annuity purchases for defined benefit pension plans for the first time. Industry stakeholders have been expecting the province’s regulations, which are currently under consultation, since Jan. 1, 2016, when Quebec implemented legislative changes that replaced its solvency regime with enhanced going-concern funding rules and required […]
While flexible benefits plans are a clear trend among Canadian employers, the range of choices can be daunting for employees. So how much choice is too much? That was a question Pitney Bowes Inc. considered when it redesigned its benefits plan in 2015. As part of the changes, the company trimmed its menu of mix-and-match […]
While the federal government’s plan to extend parental benefits under the employment insurance program to 18 months is a welcome move for some working parents, it could create a number of issues for employers that provide top-up programs to their staff. With the potential to create added costs and administrative complexities, the change to a […]
Saskatchewan begins applying its new six per cent sales tax on insurance premiums on Aug. 1. Will the new tax be a significant cost to employers that will discourage them from offering benefits or is it a small amount that will have little impact on their plans? Debra Wiegers, benefits consultant and head of the […]
Former Sears Canada Inc. employees who opt to take the commuted value of their defined benefit pension are facing an immediate 19 per cent reduction in their entitlements. According to an update to former employees from their legal counsel, Koskie Minsky LLP, the reduction is a result of the underfunding in the Sears pension plan. As […]