Canada has risen one spot, to No. 8, on a list of the countries that provide the best retirement security. The annual list, from Natixis Investment Managers, found Canada ranked higher in the finances and material well-being sub-indexes, decreased in quality of life and held steady in health. The report also identified three global risks weighing on […]
While the Pension Investment Association of Canada is generally supportive of British Columbia’s proposed solvency funding framework, when it comes to requirements around funding the provision for adverse deviations, the organization is suggesting B.C. takes a page from Ontario and Quebec. With many governments across Canada looking to make defined benefit plans more sustainable, the […]
With the federal election about a month away, Canada’s political parties are rolling out their election platforms, making a host of promises to improve health care, employment insurance, the minimum wage and pension legislation. If elected, the Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party and Green Party of Canada are all promising to implement a national pharmacare program. […]
The 2008 financial crisis is an event that defined benefit plan sponsors won’t soon forget. Roller-coaster markets exposed gaps in their investment strategies, while de-risking appeared on pension committee agendas as they assessed the damage and focused on the road to fully funded statuses. Back in 2008, few tools were available to de-risk pension plans. […]
As a solution to employee inertia, many plan sponsors with defined contribution arrangements are looking at setting automatic features as their plan’s default option. When the Royal Bank of Canada redesigned its DC plan in 2012, it introduced auto-enrolment for all new plan members following a six-month waiting period. Before the change, employees had a […]
The federal government is reforming the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act on Nov. 1, 2019 to enhance retirement security and protect pension plans. As it announced in its 2019 budget in March, the reforms are aimed at making the insolvency process fairer, more transparent and more accessible. Read: Budget 2019: […]
Canada’s largest publicly traded companies could have eliminated their defined benefit pension deficits five times over with the value of their shareholder payouts in 2017 alone, according to a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “Despite the decline in DB plans, a third of Canada’s biggest companies actually maintain a DB plan of some […]
With the private sector’s move from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans and rising life expectancies, the issue of retirement decumulation is increasing in importance. Decumulation deals with converting retirement savings into income that must be managed over the rest of the retiree’s lifetime. It can be a challenge for Canadians who don’t have a significant […]
With Canadians living longer, the country’s pension landscape continuing to evolve and more private sector companies struggling to fund their defined benefit plans, governments across the country are reconsidering their regulations around pension solvency funding requirements. From coast to coast, here’s an update on the latest consultations and amendments. British Columbia In October 2018, the […]
A new report looking at four U.S. states that moved new employees from defined benefit to defined contribution or cash balance pension plans found the changes resulted in higher taxpayer costs and no meaningful improvements to the plans’ funding and liabilities. The report, by the National Institute on Retirement Security, looked at Alaska, Kentucky, Michigan and West Virginia — […]