The Government of Alberta amended the Employment Pension Plans Regulation to extend certain other time limits that are applicable to all pension plans, specifically deadlines for amending plan texts to comply with the new Employment Pension Plans Act.
The regulation was also amended to establish a new moratorium on solvency fund for collectively bargained multi-employer pension plans.
Here are some of the key amendments:
Assessment of Plans – Section 52(b): After a phase-in period, the original regulation would have required an assessment to be done annually. Based on stakeholder feedback, and in order to ensure a meaningful review of plan activities, this amendment now requires the assessment to be done every three years.
Summary of Contributions Required – Section 70(2): This section would have required administrators to provide fundholders with a new summary of contributions required, within 30 days of the effective date of the regulation or Sept. 30, 2014. This has now been changed to 150 days or Jan. 31, 2015. For most pension plans, this means the new summary of contributions required to be filed with the fundholder will be for the year Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2015.
Default Funds – Section 72(4)(b) and (4.1): This section would have required administrators to set up prescribed default investment funds for member-directed investments by Dec. 31, 2014. Due to stakeholder feedback, this date has now been changed to June 30, 2015.
A new paragraph 4.1 was added to clarify that contributions made prior to Sept. 1, 2014, that were deposited in the default fund in effect prior to the regulation coming into effect may remain in the prior default fund.
The Superintendent’s office recognizes that contributions can only be made to the new default fund after the default fund is established. Therefore, contributions made after Sept. 1, 2014, but prior to the new default fund being established, will continue to be remitted to the prior default fund and will not need to be transferred to the new default fund once it is established. The new default fund must be established by June 30, 2015.
Pension Plan Document Amendment Filing Deadline – Section 159(3): Originally, administrators were required to file amended plan documents incorporating the new provisions of the act by Dec. 31, 2014. Industry feedback strongly indicated this would be too tight a time frame. As a result, the Superintendent’s office advised that, upon application by a plan, the Superintendent would extend that deadline to up to March 31, 2015.
The regulation amendment changes the date for all plans from Dec. 31, 2014 to June 30, 2015, without the need for plans to request the extension. Plans that have received approval to extend their deadline to March 31, 2015, are automatically extended to June 30, 2015, and no further communication or approval between plans and the Superintendent is required.
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