A-01 PENSION AND RETIREMENT INCOME

1.  Introduction
   1. All employed persons should have access to a pension plan that will guarantee retirement benefits, based on salary and service in employment.

2. Pension Plans – General
   1. A pension should provide a person completing a full working career to continue, in retirement, the standard of living attained at the end of that career.
   2. A pension (or aggregation of pensions) based upon a short working career or a series of careers should provide a person with a living standard in retirement that accurately and reasonably reflects the person’s period of employment.
   3. Pension payments should be adjusted on a regular, automatic basis in accordance with annual increases in the Canadian Consumer Price Index.
   4. A pension plan should provide a pension to the surviving spouse of no less than sixty per cent (60%) of the original pension, except where that provision is waived, in writing, by the spouse.
   5. A pension plan should recognize common-law and same-sex spouses (as defined by provincial statutes) in the same manner as legally married spouses.
   6. A pension plan should provide that, where significant improvements are made in the plan, provisions exist for the re-examination and adjustment of the benefits currently provided retired plan members.
   7. Pension plan members (retired and active) should have a major role in making decisions affecting plan administration and the investment of pension funds.
   8. Medical and dental health benefits (comparable to those provided to actively employed members of the pension plan) should be provided to retired members of the plan, including surviving spouse in receipt of a survivor pension from the plan.
   9. Governments should, in consultation with pension plan sponsors and plan members, set standards and regulate the administration and funding of pension plans.
   10. All pension plans should be fully funded.

3. Pension Plans – Federal Government
   1. Teachers should be entitled to have continuing representation on the Advisory Board of the Canada Pension Plan.
   2. Old Age Security should be paid on a universal basis to all eligible Canadians.
   3. Old Age Security should be established and maintained at fifteen per cent (15%) of the Average Industrial Wage.
   4. Old Age Security should not be subject to any special tax, and the existing “claw-back ” of the Income Tax Act should be repealed.

4. Teacher Pension Plans – Reciprocity
   1. Teacher pension plans in Canada should participate in a single reciprocal agreement (based upon an equitable and actuarially determined transfer of funds) that would provide teachers who transfer from one pension plan to another with full recognition for previous service in the new jurisdiction for that period of time.

(1994)
(2010 reaffirmed) (2016 reaffirmed) (2021 reaffirmed)

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