Harper Index: Pension changes would increase risk for workers

Employers using crisis to push for looser regulation of how pension workers' money is managed.

by Ish Theilheimer with Stephanie Fahey

OTTAWA, April 24, 2009, HarperIndex.ca: The Harper Conservatives are poised to make small but high-impact changes to pension law that will let companies duck pensions responsibilities and use pension money for other purposes. At the same time, they government has rejected a method it could use immediately to inject $200 billion stimulus into the economy through pension insurance.

With the economic crisis, Canadians in every trade and profession have become worried about their pensions and the stability of the plans that back them.

"I don't think there is a pension plan in this country that is not in some serious jeopardy at this point in time," NDP pension critic Wayne Marston (Hamilton EastStoney Creek) told a Parliament Hill news conference. "There isn't one that you can say is secure. The NDP has introduced legislation (C-361) intended to ensure public sector pensions investments are low-risk only and that executive bonuses are carefully supervised.

Joel Harden of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) says companies are blaming the economic crisis for underfunding of their pension plans. Although there are companies in serious trouble, research by the CLC shows that as recently as last November, corporations in Canada had 18.3 times as much in assets as in pension liabilities. Pension fund money, he says, has been shifted on balance sheets to other purposes.

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