January 2019

16Jan

Canada: 2019 Brings New Rules For Federally Regulated Employers

In 2018, provincially regulated employers saw significant changes to provincial employment standards legislation such as found in Bill 17 (Alberta), Bill 176 (Quebec). and Bill 148 (Ontario). Not to be outdone, Parliament has introduced a massive piece of omnibus legislation in Bill C-86 (the Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2) which received royal assent last month. Buried within Bill C-86's changes to tax, customs, banking and pension legislation are significant modifications to the Canada Labour Code and the creation...

January 16, 2019
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02Jan

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board begins managing additional CPP contribution amounts affecting millions of future beneficiaries

Starting this week, (CPPIB) will receive and invest additional Canada Pension Plan (CPP) contribution amounts, helping to safeguard increased retirement income for current CPP contributors and future generations. Federal and provincial governments decided in 2016 to expand the CPP to provide enhanced future benefits for workers who contribute, creating a stronger foundation for retirement. As the investment manager of the CPP Fund, CPPIB is responsible for prudently investing the additional contribution amounts arising from the enhancement to the CPP....

January 2, 2019
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December 2018

07Dec

Canadian taxpayers subsidize government pensions to the tune of $22 billion a year

Government employees don’t pay the full cost of their defined-benefit pensions. Taxpayers provide a $22 billion annual subsidy by assuming undisclosed investment risks for which they are not compensated, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. “The issue is not whether government employees should have defined-benefit pensions, but rather how much they should pay for these pensions,” said Philip Cross, Fraser Institute senior fellow and co-author of Risk and Reward...

December 7, 2018
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05Dec

Who Wins The Retirement Game?

On the plane to a family Thanksgiving a nice seatmate asked what kind of work I do (as she watched me struggle with a spreadsheet). I brightly told her I am an economics professor working to expand pensions to solve the retirement crises. She looked at me blankly and said, "I'm Canadian, we don't have these problems. That stopped me short. Really? Canada? Has the friendly nation to the north figured it out? Canada has been described, in jest of course,...

December 5, 2018
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04Dec

Canada pension fund investment into US detention firm larger than reported

CPPIB holds $6.1m in investments in Geo Group, a firm that runs US detention facilities under Trump’s immigration crackdown A controversial investment by one of Canada’s biggest pension funds in a company which operates private prisons in the United States is larger than initially thought, recent securities filings have revealed. The Guardian and Documented reported last month that the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) – which manages $366.6bn in pension funds on behalf of some 20 million Canadian retirees –...

December 4, 2018
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October 2018

19Oct

Canada. ‘Some baloney’ in assertion Canada’s pension fund has highest ethical standards

OTTAWA -- "We expect the CPPIB, like other Crown corporations, to live up to the highest standards of ethics and behaviour and that is, in fact, exactly what it is doing." -- Finance Minister Bill Morneau during question period Monday in the House of Commons. The New Democrats challenged Morneau this week to weigh in on new ethical questions surrounding the investment portfolio of the arms-length Canada Pension Plan Investment Board -- which manages hundreds of billions of dollars worth...

October 19, 2018
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12Oct

‘Deeply concerning’: Canada pension fund invests in US immigration detention firms

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board holds $5.9m of stock in two companies profiting from Trump’s ‘zero-tolerance’ Mexico border policy Canadian politicians have expressed alarm that one of Canada’s biggest pension investment funds has increased holdings in two US private companies that run American prisons and incarcerate the majority of detained immigrants. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), which manages $366.6bn in pension funds on behalf of some 20 million Canadian retirees, holds US$5.9m of stock in Geo Group and...

October 12, 2018
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12Oct

Canada pension fund to lift China investment

CPPIB plans to increase funding across country as it eyes long-term market opportunities from growing middle-income group, aging population By 2025, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board plans to have 20 percent of its estimated C$800 billion ($612 billion) assets invested in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, said Mark Machin, president and CEO of CPPIB. "It's a sensible thing to increase our supply to this market. We are building expertise, and we think valuation is not perfect in this...

October 12, 2018
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04Oct

Financial health of Canadian defined-benefit pension plans hits all-time quarterly high in Q3 2018

Rising bond yields and a continuing strong U.S. equity market helped boost the health of Canadian defined benefit pension plans to the highest level ever recorded, according to the latest quarterly Median Solvency Ratio from Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Quotes: “Aon has been measuring median solvency for the better part of two decades now, and we have never seen quarterly levels this high,” said William da Silva, Senior...

October 4, 2018
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September 2018

25Sep

Canada. Non-profit workers offered chance to join Ontario public sector pension plan

As many as one million Ontarians who work for registered charities and non-profit organizations will be eligible to join the provincial government pension plan under an agreement being announced Monday. The Ontario Nonprofit Network, which advocates on behalf of the province’s 58,000 charities and non-profits, is recommending OPTrust as the sector’s first defined-benefit pension provider. The new OPTrust Select plan will be available to every registered charity and non-profit in Ontario, whether it has one employee or hundreds, said the network’s...

September 25, 2018
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