The Public Sector Pension Investment Board(PSPIB)and Loral Space & Communications are buying Telesat from BCE for $3.42 billion. The sale is contingent on approval in Canada and the United States and is expected to be completed by the middle of next year. In October, PSPIB announced it would acquire Retirement Residences Real Estate Investment Trust […]
Bill 107, the amendment act to the Human Rights Code, passed its third reading on Dec. 4, 2006, and is expected to become law some time next year. How Bill 107 will affect employers remains to be seen, but employers should be aware of three changes emerging from this legislation, according to lawyers at Fasken […]
Three areas of Bill 102 will affect private plan sponsors, said Sandra Pellegrini, a consultant with Mercer HR Consulting, at the Ontario Club in Toronto yesterday. They are: access to drugs, value for money and appropriate use of drugs. Access to drugs The new “Conditional Listing” and “Exceptional Access” sections in Bill 102 will hasten […]
Privacy legislation places limits on the collection, use and disclosure of personal information, said Michael Wolpert, a lawyer with Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt in Calgary, at the Ontario Club in Toronto yesterday. It’s important for employers to familiarize themselves with collection, use and disclosure, he continued, because everything revolves around these terms with respect to […]
“Flex is really defined when the employee has a choice of how to spend the company’s money,” said Tim Hadlow, senior benefits consultant at Hewitt Associates, explaining flexible benefits plans at the Ontario Club in Toronto today. Although there is a range of flex plans, the most common, Hadlow said, is the full flex. In […]
Graeme Jannaway, managing director, Jannaway & Associates, explained his strategy for business continuity at the Pandemic Communications Forum at Toronto’s Courtyard by Marriott. “Business continuity is a situation where you beat down as many of the risks as you can,” he explained. “Those risks you can’t avoid, you write plans that tell you what you […]
Current pension deficits pose a crisis to the future and stability of plans, according to lawyer Sheldon Wayne of Hicks Morley. He came to that conclusion after a study by the Financial Services Commission of Ontario showed that that 75% of the more than 1,500 single-employer pension plans it looked at are underfunded on a […]
Despite companies’ conversion from expensive, cumbersome defined benefit(DB)pension plans to the more cost-effective, compact defined contribution(DC)plans in the last 10 years, a DC plan can still be burdensome to employers. “It’s becoming clear that DC plans are not as low maintenance as they seem,” said Stephanie Kalinowski, a partner at law firm Hicks Morley at […]
Avery Shenfeld, managing director and senior economist with CIBC World Markets, relayed his latest economic and financial markets forecast yesterday at the National Club in Toronto. “I’ve called this a benign slowdown,” Shenfeld said. “There are slowdowns that turn out okay for investors; there are slowdowns that turn into recessions. This seems to be of […]
Businesses should plan for a pandemic sooner rather than later, experts at the Pandemic Planning for Small & Mid-Sized Businesses seminar said yesterday. A flu pandemic is a worldwide event that results when a new influenza subtype emerges, said Dr. Susan Tamblyn, an associate clinical professor at the University of Western Ontario in London. “There […]