Ontario has appointed Robert Poirier to conduct the first governance review of the Ontario Municipal Employees’ Retirement System (OMERS) since 2012, aiming to ensure the pension plan serves its members fairly and transparently.
Poirier, a former Metrolinx board member and former chair of the Toronto Port Authority, will oversee the review and offer recommendations to Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra. The review will examine various aspects of the OMERS Sponsors Corporation and the OMERS Administration Corporation, including board representation and the effectiveness of their mandates. It will also assess how plan assets are managed and how investment decisions are made by the Administration Corporation.
“We are committed to strengthening OMERS governance to ensure that it works in the best interests of its members,” said Calandra. “This review will ensure important decisions that impact members continue to be made in a transparent way.”
The review will also consider best practices in pension governance that could potentially be implemented by OMERS. However, it will not focus on financial details or decisions regarding contribution rates, fairness of plan benefits, or the supplemental plan.
OMERS is one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans, encompassing more than 1,000 participating employers and over 600,000 active, deferred, and retired employees from municipalities, local agencies, public utilities, firefighters, police, paramedics, and non-teaching school board staff across Ontario.
In 2006, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System Act transferred sponsor responsibilities, such as making changes to the OMERS pension plan, from the province to the OMERS Sponsors Corporation. The last governance review was conducted in 2012, when a third-party advisor identified areas for improvement in OMERS governance.