The Alberta Legislature has been prorogued, officially killing all government legislation, including two controversial pension reform bills.
The Government of Nova Scotia has amended pension regulations to allow greater flexibility for people to withdraw from locked-in pensions when facing financial hardship.
The South Korean government has decided to make private pension plans mandatory.
Alberta is moving forward with sweeping pension reforms in the new Employment Pension Plans Act and regulations, which come into effect on Sept. 1, 2014. Alberta’s new approach of providing comprehensive and specific rules for various types of pension plan designs is a welcome change from the one-size-fits-all model employed in many other Canadian jurisdictions.
The Government of New Brunswick reconvened the legislative assembly to make amendments to the Pension Benefits Act that will enable retirees under the Fraser Papers’ pension plans to immediately benefit from increased pension payouts.
The Government of Ontario is moving ahead with its mandatory provincial pension plan, the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP), after the provincial budget received royal assent last week.
Ontario's budget received royal assent last week and that means plans to create the Ontario Retirement Pension Plan will go ahead.
Ontario has been pushing the federal government and other provinces to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) as a way of dealing with, in its view, a massive failure by Ontarians (and, by extension, Canadians) to prepare financially for retirement. Ottawa opposes CPP expansion because enhancements are viewed as “risky,” job destructive and discouraging business expansion.
On Tuesday, Alberta's Employment Pension Plans Regulation was passed by cabinet.
How many regulators does it take to ensure that Canadian employment pensions are prudently funded and properly administered? Answer: 11—one to actually regulate pensions and 10 to fulfill the twin constitutional attributes of exclusive jurisdiction and regulatory inefficiency.