Welcome to the first A.M. Pension blog post of 2019.

There have been a number of significant legislative and case-law developments in the area of pensions and benefits law in 2018.

As we discussed in our April post, in late 2017, the Ontario pension regulator, the Financial Services Commission of Ontario ("FSCO"), announced that it was undertaking a series of "targeted reviews" of selected pension plans.

In an earlier blog post, we discussed some of the risks to sponsors and administrators of registered pension plans.

As discussed in our last A.M. Pension webinar, the province of Québec recently enacted legislation that impacts the ability of a pension and benefit plan sponsor to amend its pension and benefit plans with respect to Québec employees.

In our most recent blog post, we discussed some of the risks for directors, officers and other stakeholders in the administration of a registered pension plan.

Risk management is a key element in the governance of any registered pension plan.

Much attention has been given recently to the Digital Privacy Act and the changes that will come into force later this year under PIPEDA in respect of mandatory breach reporting and recordkeeping.

Missing or unlocatable plan members and unclaimed balances under registered pension plans are a significant challenge for plan administrators.

As a result of a recent decision of the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench, common-law spouses in Alberta now (finally) have the right to divide pension benefits on relationship breakdown.

The Tribunal found that the respondent school board had not discharged its onus to justify the infringement under section 1 of the Charter.

Administrators of registered pension plans are statutorily required to provide certain information to plan members and other plan beneficiaries.

After much discussion and debate, on May 1, 2018, much of the new rules under the Pension Benefits Act (Ontario) ("PBA") in respect of the funding of defined benefit pension plans came into effect.

In recent years, Canadian pension standards legislation has been in, what seems to be, a constant state of change.

As discussed at our April A.M. Pension webinar, the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal recently released its decision in Canadian Elevator Industry Welfare Trust Fund v. Skinner.