Specialty medications and high-cost drugs for common conditions are driving up private plan drug spending, according to Express Scripts Canada’s annual drug trends report. The report found the rapid increases in drug spending for private plans over the last 20 years have started to slow. The average annual drug spending per plan member was up just 0.9 per cent […]
Digital employee health benefits platform League Inc. is now offering its employees and their spouses or common-law partners $5,000 per lifetime toward in vitro fertilization or other similar fertility treatment. According to Kim Tabac, League’s chief people officer, the startup began offering the IVF benefit in the last nine months, in response to interest from […]
Alongside Hydro One Ltd.’s initial public offering in November 2015, the company underwent an internal transformation by revamping its total rewards program. Previously, the utility organization’s program was very traditional with a fixed salary structure and not much external benchmarking, according to Sabrin Lila, Hydro One’s director of compensation and human resources analytics, noting the company was limited by existing […]
PCL Construction is marking Earth Day with a challenge that encourages employees to be more mindful of the environment. Its employees across the country are working their way through a list of 50 small but meaningful activities — from changing how they use paper to planting trees to recycling batteries — to enter into a draw […]
A New Democratic Party member of parliament is proposing to legislate responsible investing into the mandate of the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board. Alistair MacGregor, the MP for the British Columbia riding of Cowichan-Malahat-Langford, has drafted a bill to amend section 35 of the CPPIB Act to prevent the board from investing in companies that have […]
Health Canada has proposed amendments to the Food and Drug Regulations that would make it easier for drug companies to get authorization to produce generic versions of brand name drugs. The amendments would allow Health Canada to more quickly to approve generic drug applications that have the same active ingredients as their brand name equivalent […]
Colin Ripsman, former vice-president of institutional client service at Foyston, Gordon and Payne Inc., has launched a specialty investment consulting firm. Based in Toronto, Elegant Investment Solutions Inc., will offer investment consulting and governance services for defined benefit and defined contribution pension plans, foundations and endowments. “There’s a real benefit from a client perspective to work […]
Employers could play a role in encouraging low-income Canadians to save more for retirement by offering group tax-free savings accounts, according to a report by the Institute for Research on Public Policy. The report found that, since their introduction in 2009, TFSAs have become nearly as popular as registered retirement savings plans, and could even go […]
New Zealand government pension funds are calling on Facebook Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Twitter Inc. to reign in the proliferation of hate on their platforms in the wake of the Christchurch terrorist attack in March. The New Zealand Super Fund, Government Superannuation Fund, National Provident Fund and Kiwi Wealth, as well as the country’s Accident Compensation Corp., […]
Canadian employers may need to re-evaluate how they think about job classes and compensation when the federal pay equity legislation comes into effect. The new legislation, which was announced in October 2018, has strict requirements for how employers measure a job’s worth to the organization for the purpose of compensation. Some workplaces may not be […]