A solvency valuation is one way that actuaries look at pension plans. It provides pension plan managers with a way of assessing the overall pension plan. I think, though, that understanding the pension liability and the growth in the pension liability and in the pension benefits is something that is particularly important.
Certainly the federal government has much more means to withstand the impacts of some of its different types of expenditures. I know that in New Brunswick, again going back to the small type of jurisdiction, the pension expense got to the point that a number of the pension plans had to be restructured into shared risk pension plans to make sure that everybody understood how much risk the employer was taking and how much risk the employees were taking. That was very much driven by the fact that the pension expense was starting to get so large as a percentage of expenditures that it had to be dealt with.
Again, the federal government has much more ability to manage this, but I think it's something that needs attention to be paid to it. There's an issue of intergenerational equity in it as well. In funding pension plans, part of what's happening is that the employees today and the government today—the employer today—are making sure they put enough money aside, within actuarial assumptions, to deal with it. If that doesn't happen and that liability just sits there, it could then be passed on to future generations to perhaps have to fund their own pension plan but also go back to fund the pensions of retirees, if the plan hadn't been fully funded.
It's not so much a question of solvency or other valuations. It is, though, very much a question of good, sound pension plan management to make sure that the plans are going to be able to live up to the promises that have been made.