The National Police Federation, which represents 20,000 Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers, has launched a class action claiming the federal government has wrongfully prevented part-time officers from buying back into their pension plan. In a press release, Brian Sauvé, president and chief executive officer at the NPF, said virtually the entire class of part-time officers […]
The Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario is closely monitoring administrative risk and pension plan sponsors’ geopolitical concerns in 2025, says Andrew Fung, the organization’s executive vice-president of pensions. He cites increasing non-investment management risks like fraud, identity theft, data breach, cybersecurity and the use of artificial intelligence as emerging risks that plan sponsors will […]
From the unlocking of pension benefits in Nova Scotia to new pay transparency rules in Ontario, stories about pension and employment legislation caught the eyes of Benefits Canada’s readers in 2024. In addition, a pair of articles on the rollout of new glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist medications in Canada were also popular with readers. Here […]
An article on the federal government’s decision to transfer a $1.9 billion public pension surplus to general revenue was the most-read story on BenefitsCanada.com this past week. Here are the top five human resources, benefits, pension and investment stories of the last week: 1. Feds’ decision to transfer $1.9BN public pension surplus to general revenue within its […]
According to Statistics Canada, 80 per cent of Canadian public sector workers benefit from a respectable, life-long pension. However, for many private sector employees the quality of the pension plan available to them leaves much to be desired. The typical private sector pension is a defined contribution plan, which means employees bear the risk of […]
The federal government’s recent decision to transfer a $1.9 billion surplus from the Public Service Pension Plan to its general revenue is within its purview, says Mitch Frazer, a pension lawyer and managing partner at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. “[This situation is] slightly different because this plan is made by a statute and, […]
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland says today’s fall economic statement will remove the cap that currently restricts Canadian pension funds from owning more than 30 per cent of the voting shares of a Canadian entity. Freeland says this will make it easier for Canadian pension funds, which have more than $3 trillion in assets, to make […]
The keynote session at Benefits Canada’s 2024 Defined Contribution Investment Forum warned that the failure to plan for the ‘boomer bulge’ is affecting private and public pension policy. The presentation from Paul Kershaw, a policy professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of not-for-profit organization Generation Squeeze, got me thinking: if the influx […]
While both experts point to the obligation of the pension promise, one argues that many pension funds are already overweight in Canadian allocations, while the other cites these funds’ risk-return calibrations, highlighting the strategic assets available abroad. Jeremy Forgie, pension lawyer and senior counsel at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP Whether our governments should try […]
As gig workers make up a greater share of the Canadian workforce, a lack of retirement savings options may leave this growing demographic facing financial insecurity in their senior years. According to data from Statistics Canada, 871,000 Canadians performed gig work as their primary job in the fourth quarter of 2022. Among those gig workers, […]