Retirees Stop Pension Surplus Grab

Robert Liptrap
519.824.289?
pliptrap@sympatico.ca

The Ontario Government’s decision to abandon legislation changing the rules governing access to pension surplus funds is an excellent example of what retirees can do when they work together.

Last fall, Government introduced Bill 198 in the legislature. Bill 198 was a monster omnibus Bill covering a miscellaneous collection of legislative changes. Tacked on to the end of it were amendments to the Pensions Benefits Act. These amendments would make it much easier for employers to withdraw money from pension surplus funds. Under one procedure, to withdraw funds from the surplus, the employer would need the consent of two-thirds of active members of the plan and possibly the consent of two-thirds of retirees – unless the Superintendent of Pensions approves a lower proportion. That was bad enough for retirees. But even worse – for active members as well as retirees – was an alternative procedure under which the employer could with-draw funds unilaterally without any consent requirement. The criteria governing this procedure would be settled later by regulation.

In the fall of 2001 and the summer of 2002, the Ministry of Finance had carried out some “consultations” on possible changes in the pension surplus legislation with various stakeholders. But as one who took part in these consultations, I can report that they don’t amount to much. You are shown various options the Ministry is considering, your concerns are noted, but then you have to wait until the Bill is introduced in the legislative Assembly to find out what the Government has decided to do. Believe you me, when those of us who had been following this issue discovered what the Government had tucked into Bill 198, we were not pleased.

Instead of simply howling in protest, members of a number of retiree organizations including our own at the University of Toronto, joined together to pressure the Government to drop the pension law changes in Bill 198. Bill Smitherman, the Liberal MLA for Rosedale Centre, played a key role in bringing us together at Queen’s Park.

On Wednesday, 27th November, we packed the Public Gallery as the opposition parties launched a full-scale assault on the Government for its pension surplus proposals. By this time, the Government had worked itself into an awkward corner. Premier Eves was admitting that the pension changes in Bill 198 should be reconsidered. However, instead of dropping them, they would be kept in the Bill, but not proclaimed in force. On the floor of the House, an embarrassed Minister Ecker did her best to defend this position, while her colleagues on the backbenches looked up with dismay at the ranks of angry gray power assembled in the Gallery. We created a good “photo op” for the next day’s newspapers by having a well mannered couple removed from the Gallery for allowing a few faint murmurs of discontent to escape from their lips. Lo and behold, the next day, the Government got the message. The House would go back to Committee of the Whole and remove the pension law changes from the Bill – which it did, pronto.

Quite a lesson, wasn’t it, in the value of we retirees using our collective strength to protect our interests!