Expand the Canada Pension Plan replacement rate to 50 per cent of earnings. Cap annual contributions to registered retirement savings plans at $22,000. Establish a public agency to administer terminated pension plans. Create a single-payer pharmacare plan for all of Canada. These are just a few of the suggestions put forth by the Canadian Centre for Policy […]
While U.S. hedge fund investor and Sears Canada Inc. shareholder Eddie Lampert suggested in a blog post earlier this month that the shortfall in the company’s pension plan isn’t as bad as originally reported, a new report has found that’s not the case. A Feb. 18 report by FTI Consulting Inc., the monitor appointed in the Sears […]
The Canadian Institute of Actuaries has responded to Ontario’s description of its proposed funding rules for defined benefit plans. While the provincial government’s document, published in December 2017, included details on how the provision for adverse deviations would work under proposed new going-concern rules, the Canadian Institute of Actuaries’ submission says more information is required on how these were established. “We encourage the Ministry […]
The Cape Breton Regional Municipality is transferring its defined benefit plan into Nova Scotia’s public service superannuation plan. The transfer includes 1,157 members, 724 of whom are active, and represents the largest completed under the Municipal and Other Authorities Pension Plan Transfer Act, which came into effect in November 2016. Read: Sherbrooke Restoration Commission moves to public service […]
The median solvency ratio for defined benefit plans regulated by the Financial Services Commission of Ontario was 94 per cent in the last quarter of 2017, up from 91 per cent at the end of September, according to the organization’s quarterly report. More than half (57.2 per cent) of plans had a solvency ratio between 85 […]
When Loblaw Companies Ltd. purchased annuities to reduce the risk in its defined benefit pension plans in January 2017, the $350-million, inflation-linked buyout kicked off a year of significant activity in the Canadian annuity market. Group annuity purchases had reached nearly $2.5 billion by the end of the third quarter of 2017, according to Willis […]
While retirement may not yet be at the top of millennials’ priority lists, it won’t be long before they arrive on the pension scene. How can the industry prepare for their arrival? And what might the rejuvenation look like? Let’s start by examining the pension world as we know it today. On the workplace front, […]
The ongoing Sears Canada Inc. and Wabush Mines restructurings illustrate that there’s perhaps nothing as vexing in insolvency situations as the position that pension deficits occupy in the pecking order of creditor priorities. Indeed, many observers cite the issues over the status of the deemed trust that most provinces’ legislation imposes on pension deficits as […]
Robust equity markets led U.S. institutional investment plans to strong gains in 2017 with a median return of 15.3 per cent for the year, according to new data by Northern Trust Corp. The Northern Trust universe, which tracks about 300 large U.S. institutional investment plans, showed the median return for U.S. equity in the fourth quarter of 2017 was 6.1 per cent with […]
Sun Life Financial has appointed Heather Wolfe as managing director of liability-driven investment strategies in its defined benefit solutions team. For the previous seven years, Wolfe was a managing director of client relationships in the defined benefit solutions team. Her previous roles in the industry include assistant vice-president of retirement and savings plans at TD Bank Financial Group, […]