Thank you.
It's a privilege to be here today. I'm Jennifer Brown, chief pension officer at OMERS Administration Corporation, which is responsible for OMERS' investment plan administration and member services. OMERS also has a sponsors corporation, which is responsible for plan design, benefits, and contribution rates.
With me today is Ian MacEachern, our director of government relations.
OMERS is perhaps Canada's leading example of a successful, multi-employer defined benefit plan, serving over 928 employers in municipalities, school boards, children's aid societies, police and fire departments, and other local agencies across Ontario. The multi-employer model pools costs and risks.
On the other side of the table are 290,000 active members. Fully one out of every 20 people working in Ontario is an OMERS plan member. We currently provide pensions to more than 110,000 retirees. There are more than 40 umbrella groups, representing OMERS' unions and employee associations, and over 600 locals.
Our model was built from the bottom up, step by step, over a long period of time. OMERS has been jointly funded by employers and plan members since 1962. It has been jointly governed since 1968. OMERS is also a jointly sponsored pension plan. Under our model, employers and members have an equal voice at the boardroom table. They share direct responsibility for all major decisions and the plan's success.
Broadly speaking, we conduct our pension and investment activities within the confines of both Ontario and federal pension and income tax legislation. Our job is to invest contributions and the investment income we generate to secure members' retirement benefits. OMERS' highly skilled investment professionals manage over $47 billion in net investment assets that generate the income necessary to pay pensions. About 70% of pension costs are paid by investment returns, while the other 30% is shared through contributions by employers and members.
One priority of our strategy is to organize long-term access to capital. This will enable us to acquire larger-value investments that we would not otherwise acquire due to risk management considerations.
The Ontario government expanded OMERS' powers last year to enable us to offer investment and administration and management services to a wide range of potential clients inside and outside of Canada, including public and private sector pension funds, governments and their agencies, corporations, colleges, universities and their endowments, and registered charities. The breadth of these legislative powers acknowledges our ability to deliver such services to others, but more importantly, it allows others the advantage we have in relation to plan administration capabilities and investments.
During the course of the last two years, the adequacy of pension coverage has also become a high-profile political issue. Federal, provincial, and territorial finance ministers and first ministers have met several times and made statements about pension coverage and retirement income issues. Ontario has made promises to consult on important changes to the pension system. Several provinces have already released consultation papers, and the federal government has announced spring consultations and a review of policy options at the May 2010 finance ministers meeting.
OMERS wishes to be an active contributor to the national debate on pension reform to the government-sponsored pillar of the pension system. Our interest in addressing these retirement and security issues is as one of Canada's largest defined benefit plans, whose sponsors and members expect leadership from us on these policy considerations pertaining to pensions.
It is our position that pension reform should combine competitive choice for those without coverage and that changes to the system do not harm or undermine the current pension or retirement savings arrangements. We will continue to examine the current proposals for possible variations of the Canada Pension Plan and identify risks and benefits posed by each option.
This is an extremely useful and important public debate, and we applaud your committee's interest in addressing it.
Thank you. We welcome your questions and comments within our remaining time, in particular to our view of competitive choice available to all Canadians.