On October 27, 2009, the Government of Canada announced its
intention to reform the legislative framework applicable to
federally-registered pension plans as well as the tax rules
applicable to nearly all registered pension plans in Canada. The announcement follows the release in January
2009 of a discussion paper and consultation period on the federal
pension rules and comes in the wake of numerous provincial attempts
at pension reform. No timeline has been given for when formal
amendments to the affected legislation and regulations will be
forthcoming, and no opportunity to comment on the announcement was
offered.
The purpose of the reforms does not appear to be so much to manage
the effects of the current financial crisis, but rather to make
fundamental changes to pension legislation that will lessen the
impact of the next one. The stated dual objectives of the reforms
are to enhance the benefit security of members and retirees while
making pension plans easier to fund and manage for plan sponsors.
Indeed, there are initiatives in the package aimed at each such
objective; however after some consideration, it is not clear
whether the proposed package of reforms strikes the right balance,
or simply strikes out. Below is our assessment of the hits, the
misses and the hard calls contained in the Minister of
Finance's announcement.
The hits (...not home runs, mind you)
Increase to excess surplus
For years, plan sponsors and member groups alike have called on
Ottawa to increase the low surplus thresholds in the Income Tax
Act (ITA) above which employers are not permitted to
contribute to their defined benefit (DB) pension plans. Ottawa has
now finally responded, signalling its plan to increase the meagre
limit of 10% of a plan's going concern liabilities applicable
to most registered pension plans in Canada to a more robust 25%.
The hope is that employers will sock away more cash in their
pension plans in order to save for a rainy day. The goal is a good
one; however, given the recent deluge, it may be quite some time
before this reform will have the desired effect, as the idea of
plan surplus is a far-off notion for most plan sponsors
today.
What prevents this reform from being a home run is that it is not
coupled with an initiative to sort out the messy rules surrounding
surplus ownership. We think it unlikely that most plan sponsors
will want to plough surplus money into their pension plans where it
is unlikely that they will be able to retrieve it, or even
recognize it as an asset on their balance sheet when Canada moves
shortly to the International Accounting Standards.
A nod to Defined Contribution (DC) and Negotiated Contribution (NC) pension plans
That the federal Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985
(PBSA) was not set up to deal with DC or NC pension plans is also a
decades-old complaint, echoed under many of the provincial regimes.
While the existing provisions of the PBSA are workable, if awkward,
with respect to DC plans, they often make little sense when it
comes to multi-employer pension plans structured as NC plans.
Ottawa intends all that to change with its planned addition of DC
and NC-specific provisions to the PBSA.
On the DC side, the PBSA and regulations are to be amended to
provide "explicit guidance on the responsibilities and
accountabilities applicable to employers, members, administrators
and investment providers" using the regulators' Capital
Accumulation Plan
Guidelines as the underlying framework. On NC plans, the
reforms are more specific. Among them: employer liability is to be
expressly curbed at the level negotiated; the board of trustees
administering a NC plan is to have the express authority to reduce
benefits where plan funding levels warrant regardless of what
the plan text might say; and clear communication of the nature
of a NC benefit is to be made to members of such plans.
Inasmuch as the above reforms should provide clarity to sponsors
and members of DC and NC plans, they are a hit. Given the tide of
conversions from DB to DC and the emphasis placed on NC plans of
late (see the various 2008 provincial commission reports on pension
reform), the addition of DC and NC-specific changes to the PBSA is
timely and necessary. As the effect of these changes will be
limited to federally-registered DC and NC plans, we hope the
provinces take the cue.
Benefit improvements linked to solvency ratio
In a move to be applauded, Ottawa intends to restrict the
ability of a plan sponsor to improve benefits under its plan where
the solvency ratio of the plan is 0.85 or less, unless the benefit
improvement is funded upfront. This will have two positive effects.
First, it will effectively save employers from granting benefit
increases they cannot afford. Second - and probably most worthwhile
- is that the cost of any benefit improvement will have to be fully
assessed prior to implementation to determine if it is permissible.
This will require the price tag of benefit improvements to be truly
understood upfront. In a unionized environment, where benefit
increases are often negotiated now to be paid for later, this
reform will improve the likelihood that promised benefits will
actually be delivered.
The misses (...some worse than others)
Partial terminations made worse
One definite "miss" is the proposal to eliminate
sponsor-declared partial terminations from the PBSA, but
to leave the regulator alone the authority to declare a partial
plan termination. The impetus for this measure is confusing. Under
what circumstances would the Superintendent have the authority to
declare a partial termination? Where such an event did occur, would
there be a requirement to inform the Superintendent? Would the
Superintendent be able to declare a partial termination many years
after the fact?
What is clear is that the sponsor would no longer be able to
control when a partial termination is declared in its plan. It is
very difficult to see how this benefits stakeholders. Given that
one of the other proposed reforms is to provide immediate vesting
to all plan members, we see no reason not to wipe the concept of
partial terminations right off the books.
Contribution holidays cut short
As the legislation currently stands, an employer may take a
contribution holiday so long as the pension plan shows that it has
a surplus sufficient to support such contribution holiday, i.e. so
long as there are at least 100 cents of assets for every dollar of
liability per the last valuation report. Under the proposed
reforms, plan sponsors would be prohibited from taking contribution
holidays where the pension plan did not have at least 105 cents of
assets for every dollar of liabilities, or assets that exceed its
liabilities by 5% measured on a solvency basis.
The Department of Finance's stated rationale for such reform is
that this new 5% cushion would enhance benefit protection, by
reducing the likelihood that the plan would become underfunded as a
result of fluctuating asset and liability values. However, the
evolution of plan deficits in Canada has generally been far more
closely linked to poor investment fund performance and declining
interest rates than to contribution holidays. Moreover, one other
effect is that sponsors will be required to pay more into their
plans than they otherwise would have, maintaining a surplus that,
as noted above, will be fought over on the plan's eventual
termination and will suffer the accounting treatment noted above.
Because it is not coupled with clear and fair surplus ownership
rules, this reform is a "miss".
The hard calls
"Modernization" of investment rules
Under the heading of "modernization", Ottawa announced
that it will be amending the pension fund investment rules in
Schedule III to the Pension Benefits Standards Regulations,
1985 to (1) remove the quantitative limits in respect of
resource and real property investments (currently there are total
and individual limits on the amount of plan assets that may be
invested in parcels of real and resource property), (2) change the
measure of the limit on a plan investing more than 10% of its
assets in any one investment from book value to market value (with
an exception for certain pooled investments) and (3) prohibit
holding employer shares even where acquired on the market. Because
Schedule III is incorporated by reference into the pension
regulations of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and
Saskatchewan, these amendments will affect both federal plans and
plans registered in those provinces.
In and of itself, change (1) would be a "hit", as many of
the larger plans are bumping up against the current arbitrary
limits on the amount of plan assets that can be invested in real
estate. However, changes (2) and (3) could prove difficult to
manage. First, market values fluctuate (as we have seen), so
keeping an eye on those values will be a near daily event where
investment levels creep up near the 10% threshold. Second, employer
shares are not an inherently bad investment - the regular standards
of prudence and fair dealing should be enough of a constraint where
they are concerned.
These concerns aside, the shortcomings of (2) and (3) could have
been overlooked had a larger problem with Schedule III - the 30%
ownership limit on the voting securities of an entity - been
addressed. This limit was ripe for relaxation or even repeal, at
least for those big and sophisticated plans for which this rule now
acts as a barrier to efficiency. True modernization would have
entailed a recognition of the wealth and the wealth of knowledge
that exists within the big plans and to allow them to opt out of
certain rules where appropriate.
Full funding on plan termination
Ottawa has finally made good on its on-again-off-again intention
(threat?) to require that federally-registered pension plans be
fully funded on plan termination, announcing that the PBSA will be
amended to require that any deficit existing on plan termination
must be funded and amortized over no more than 5 years
post-termination. This reform aligns the federal regime with that
of the pension legislation of every other Canadian jurisdiction
(save Saskatchewan).
The announcement states clearly that a deficit remaining on plan
termination will be an unsecured debt of the employer,
thus putting an end to speculation that a priority in bankruptcy
was to be instituted with respect to deficits remaining on plan
termination. This may raise the ire of plan members and retirees
(especially those marching on Parliament Hill over the past few
weeks). However, it will come as a relief to DB plan sponsors in
need of any sort of financing, as it is unlikely that any financial
institution would lend money on workable terms where a pension plan
deficit could outrank such financing in a liquidation
scenario.
Liability smoothing and an annual "fresh start"
Sponsors will always be required to file a valuation report
annually, instead of only once every three years as is often
currently required. Annual filings will keep closer tabs on a
plan's financial position, whether it be in surplus or deficit.
In order to curb the volatility associated with annual snapshots,
Ottawa has proposed that solvency liabilities be smoothed over a
3-year period, and that each year, the solvency deficit will be
measured without reference to the amortization of previous
years' deficit payments - as if it were a fresh start. Also,
the 5-year and 15-year amortization periods for solvency and
going-concern deficits remain unchanged. Notably absent from this
proposal is any rethinking of the basis on which solvency
liabilities are computed in the first place, e.g. whether long-term
government bonds remain the sole appropriate yardstick for solvency
discount rates.
Enhanced disclosure requirements
The reforms will also cause the content of annual member
statements to be expanded to include information that will provide
members with a better picture of the plan's financial status.
Among the new requirements, member statements will have to include
the total assets and liabilities of the plan, a summary of the
plan's investments and its 10 largest investment holdings. It
is not really clear to us how this additional information will
truly help members - but we doubt it will hurt, either.
Grab bag
The reform package includes a host of other proposed technical
amendments to the PBSA and its regulations to better align the
legislative framework with its current interpretation and
administration. Among them, the major one is the creation of a
repository to which employers may transfer the benefits of members
who cannot be located. Others include granting additional powers to
the federal pension plan regulator to intervene where there are
concerns about the work of a plan's actuary and amending the
definition of former member to ensure that plan members who have
transferred to a new plan do not have a say in future surplus
distributions in an older, original plan.
Knocked out of the park
In a proposal strikingly similar to the process and regime put
in place for Air Canada and its pension plans this past summer,
Ottawa has proposed that the stakeholders in distressed plans be
permitted to negotiate plan-specific solutions where a plan sponsor
is unable to meet the ordinary funding requirements.
These measures are intended to be used in very limited
circumstances for a plan sponsor in critical need, and must be
initiated by a declaration from the employer's board indicating
that it is unable to make an upcoming special payment (i.e. deficit
reduction contribution). Such a sponsor would immediately be
granted a temporary moratorium on special payments until an
alternate funding arrangement could be negotiated. In reality, we
see this relief as being part of a distressed employer's larger
corporate restructuring, whether under bankruptcy protection
proceedings or otherwise, as the news that the employer cannot make
its pension contributions would undoubtedly have an effect on its
ability to seek and maintain credit and carry on business
generally.
Having had front row seats in the Air Canada funding relief
process, we applaud the Minister of Finance for seeking to codify a
clear process, transparent to all stakeholders, and to allow access
to relief where the existing funding requirements imposed by the
current framework are ill-suited to a particular
circumstance.
It is true that in their small way, many of the proposed reforms
will be useful for those DB plans that survive. It is also true
that such reforms will not fix the problems inherent with DB plans.
For this, more would be required than the minor tweaking of the
system delivered by the Minister of Finance last week. Canada's
pension system is in need of a fundamental overhaul. Sadly, that is
not what has been delivered.
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