While the days of handing out gold watches and lapel pins to recognize an employee’s years of service are largely outdated, recognition programs in Canadian workplaces still revolve primarily around formal milestones, rather than informal, day-to-day appreciation from managers and colleagues. But as technology and data play a growing role in many human resources and […]
The British Columbia Court of Appeal has overturned a ruling that gave a copper mine employee an 18-month severance package upon retirement. At trial last year, the B.C. Supreme Court had awarded Albert Aubrey, an employee at mining company Teck Highland Valley Copper Partnership in Logan Lake, B.C., $176,250 in damages for a breach of an employment contract. […]
British Columbia PharmaCare has partnered with Pacific Blue Cross to introduce new claims technology that aims to improve the process for plan members seeking approvals for coverage of higher-cost drugs only partially covered by the provincial health-care system. To be eligible for drugs that require special authority under the province’s public drug program, plan members […]
Now is the time for employers to start looking at the Canada Pension Plan enhancements and their potential affects on workplace pension plans, said lawyer Stephanie Kalinowski during an event in Toronto on Wednesday. “Especially for [defined contribution] plans, in particular, it’s really an opportunity to step back and look at your overall plan design.” […]
The Prince of Wales’ Accounting for Sustainability project has launched a Canadian chapter of its chief financial officer network that will focus on the role the finance community plays in integrating environmental and social issues into financial decision-making. Founding members of the Canadian chapter, which is the first outside Europe, include chief financial officers from […]
The federal government is moving ahead with extending employment insurance parental benefits to 18 months and is creating a new 15-week benefit for caregivers. According to Wednesday’s budget announcement, the changes to parental benefits would allow parents to choose to receive employment insurance parental benefits over an extended period of up to 18 months at a lower benefit […]
In the course of a merger or acquisition, there are a number of balls to juggle, not the least of which are the changes to employees’ benefits packages. Last month, Benefits Canada looked at one of the more complicated scenarios: how to deal with defined benefit pension plans in the wake of a merger or […]
When Britain’s former economic watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading, published a report in 2013 about the country’s workplace defined contribution pension market, it was the latest call in the country’s ongoing conversation about pension governance and delivering value for money to plan members. The report estimated more than 186,000 pension plans in the country […]
Despite a challenging start to 2016, the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan improved its investment return to 10.4 per cent by the end of the year. The number was up from 5.1 per cent in 2015. The fund’s net assets reached $70.4 billion, up from $63.9 billion in 2015. Its investment income for 2016 was also […]
The market value of Canadian employer-sponsored pension plans grew 3.9 per cent to a total of $1.7 trillion in the third quarter of 2016, nearly doubling the increase of 1.8 per cent in the second quarter of the year, according to new data from Statistics Canada. The survey examined a sample of 144 defined benefit, […]