April Scott-Clarke, with files from Canadian Press

April Scott-Clarke, with files from Canadian Press

The underfunded Nortel employee pension plans will benefit from the $7.2 billion sale of the company’s assets, but the creditor line is long and even this large sum of cash isn’t expected to put the fund back in the black. “It’s certainly unrealistic that it’s going to fill up the hole completely,” said lawyer Susan […]

  • July 20, 2011 September 13, 2019
  • 12:22

Generic drugs just got less expensive for the 200,000 Nova Scotians enrolled in the Pharmacare program, however employers shouldn’t expect to see any reductions in their drug costs. The provinces Fair Drug Pricing Act (a stand-alone act to oversee the public drug plans, which accounted for about $300 million in spending last year) went into […]

  • July 7, 2011 September 13, 2019
  • 10:22

The New Brunswick government is delivering on a promise it campaigned on in the last provincial election—to rein in the pensions of provincial politicians. The Conservative government introduced a bill on Tuesday that would roll back pension benefits for members of the legislative assembly to 3% year from 4.5%. The move essentially reverses an increase […]

  • June 8, 2011 September 13, 2019
  • 10:32

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has offered few clues as  to what today’s budget will contain, but major spending isn’t expected. The budget will contain some new spending for families and to help create  jobs, he said, but the focus remains on eliminating the deficit by the  appointed fiscal year 2015-16. Help for seniors that don’t […]

  • March 22, 2011 September 13, 2019
  • 11:55

The Quebec government is getting kudos from the industry for being the first province to introduce a new pension program for workers that lack private plans. The provincial budget, tabled on Thursday, proposes a voluntary retirement savings plan (VRSP), which according to the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association (CLHIA) is based on the pooled […]

  • March 18, 2011 September 13, 2019
  • 10:34