Public Accounts committee  Your question is on why we invest in infrastructure assets?

Public Accounts committee  It's partly about overall diversification strategy in infrastructure as an asset class. We call it a real return asset. It has less volatility than equities do, and it is very much linked to inflation. It is very attractive in an asset mix, in a pension plan, because of its attri

Public Accounts committee  Indeed, a 2% surplus for 10 years would be considerable. Our real target is 4.1% given the risk level we assume in our portfolio. And if we do better than that, well that's great. By the way, on the subject of the existing deficits, I should say that the most recent actuarial va

Public Accounts committee  I want to start by pointing out that our investment strategy is really focused on the long term. As far as what we manage post-2000 goes, we won't be paying out any pensions before 2030, I believe. That gives us the ability to adopt a diversified investment strategy as far as cer

Public Accounts committee  Good afternoon. My colleague Martin Leroux and I are pleased to appear before the committee today as you examine chapter 1 of the recent Auditor General's report. The activities of PSP Investments, more formally known as the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, were not with

Finance committee  I hear what you are saying. Once again, we are not comparing ourselves to the private sector, but rather, to other public sector pension funds.

Finance committee  More specifically as regards pension fund managers such as our Board, yes. We are not comparing ourselves to them. In terms of compensation, we can compare ourselves to our peers, such as OMERS, the Caisse de dépôt and CCPIB, which are other pension funds. I also mentioned that,

Finance committee  Yes, I fully agree. When I was comparing standards, I was talking about those of other pension funds in Canada, such as the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, OMERS, the Caisse de dépôt et placement, bcIMC and the CPPIB.

Finance committee  Yes, you are wrong. Mr. Mulcair, in the investment business, you never have a 100% success rate. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. In fact, in the past, we have won more often than we have lost, because our returns have been good. We are talking about ABCP now, but I coul

Finance committee  We don't comply with that act; we have to comply with our own act, which has similar restrictions. I understand that is under review. There is a study, and PSP has put in a submission where we favour the lifting of those restrictions. The simple reason is that we feel—especially

Finance committee  The way we manage the risk--and it is a very rigorous process--is that we establish a portfolio that we think over the long term, over a period of at least a ten-year horizon.... You don't build portfolios on one year and market timing events. You have to build them on a long-ter

Finance committee  Again, the portfolio is reviewed annually. ABCP dealt with money markets and money market investments, which are part of the portfolio, and commercial paper was one of them. That was, I think, an unusual event.

Finance committee  I'd like to turn to Pierre. Would you take that question?

Finance committee  I believe we do consider the consequences, in the sense that we do not pay an incentive bonus on the sole basis of one year's performance. It is generally over a longer term. Even Mr. Mulcair stated that. As a general rule, incentive bonuses are based on long-term performance and

Finance committee  They're commonly referred to as alternative asset classes. Back in 2004, when we diversified our portfolio, we started to develop--and actually, we haven't been able to reap the benefits like many other big funds because we just started to develop them in 2004, and that's real es