Amendments to the Pension Benefits Standards Regulations, 1985

Proposed amendments to the Pension Benefits Standards Regulations, 1985 (PBSR) were pre-published for public comment on September 27, 2014 and the 30 day comment period ended on October 27, 2014.

The final regulations have now been approved by the Governor in Council, and were registered and published in the Canada Gazette, Part II on March 25, 2015. Not all of the amendments are coming into force on the same day. Please refer to the chart titled Key Amendments and In Force Dates for further information.

OSFI has previously communicated that it did not expect plan administrators to make formal amendments to plan documents until all PBSA and PBSR amendments related to the federal government's pension reform were in force. Now that this latest round of regulations has been passed, OSFI expects plan administrators to take steps to make the necessary amendments to their plan texts as soon as possible, taking into account the delayed coming into force dates of certain provisions of regulations.

All provisions of the PBSA and PBSR that are currently in force must be administered by the plan administrator, regardless of whether or not the plan text has been amended to reflect the changes. Similarly, actuarial reports prepared this year should reflect the relevant PBSA and PBSR amendments that are currently in force.