Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to our witnesses for being here today to discuss the reserve force pension plan. I don't think anybody would dispute that value is critical in any pension plan. The reserve force pension plan has many features that make it a valuable part of planning for members' financial futures. Some of these features include early retirement, indexing, bridge benefits, and generous benefits for survivors.
My first question is for the Office of the Auditor General. In the Auditor General's spring 2011 report, the Auditor General mentioned that there was a serious backlog in processing pension buybacks of past service. Could a reason for the backlog be attributed to the fact that, prior to the reserve force pension plan, there had been no new pension plans introduced within the public service for the past 40 years?