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At its Fall Conference in Calgary, PIAC marked Canada’s second National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with a presentation from Stephanie Big Plume. Stephanie comes from the Tsuut’ina Nation located on the southwestern edge of Calgary. Stephanie shared her perspectives about the intergenerational nature of Residential School effects, the importance of having a National Day for Truth & Reconciliation, and her perspective on what the future of Reconciliation is.

On September 21, 2022, PIAC participated in a joint submission to the Standing Committee on Finance in advance of its study of Bill C-228, a Private Members Bill that would create a Super-Priority for Pension Plans in Bankruptcy. The submission expressed concern over unintended consequences and proposed three potential alternatives to achieve the goal of pension security for Canadians. A core concern is decreasing credit availability and making it more difficult for struggling companies to secure loans. This will increase the chances of struggling businesses falling into bankruptcy. Combined with potentially more onerous reporting requirements, it would create a disincentive for employers to establish or maintain DB pension plans over DC plans. Enabling restructuring of financial arrangements with lenders would allow companies to emerge as a going concern, maintain operations and protect jobs and pensions. Alternatives suggested were 1) Allow for the appointment of a pension insolvency trustee to wind down the pension plans of insolvent employers and make decisions that maximize the dollars available; 2) Utilize large multiemployer pension plans to manage pensions from insolvent companies since it may be beneficial for smaller pension funds to merge with another plan to achieve the scale necessary to maintain the plan on a going concern basis, and 3) Allow retirees of insolvent pension plans to take advantage of recent innovations in VPLAs and ALDAs to maximize their retirement dollars. The submission was made jointly with the Association of Canadian Pension Management, Canadian Bankers Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters.