Madam Chair, there are a lot of pension members who found themselves in most distressing situations especially with the downturn in the markets. We saw large pension funds that were losing millions of dollars a day. Some of those pension funds could have been topped up and should have been topped up, but the rules that were in place at that time, in fact the rules that had been in place since 1985, allowed them to take a pension holiday. If they were 85% funded when they had to report to OSFI, they were allowed to take a pension holiday. They were also not required to report to OSFI for three years. We did not realize how serious that was. That has been in place since 1985.
We recognize that challenge. I heard from many fund sponsors that if they were allowed to top up their contributions over the 100%, they would do that. We put in place that mechanism so they could over-fund for a rainy day to make sure they were funded in case of drops in value. As well we made sure that we required them to report every year so they would not get so far behind in their funding.