Finance committee  In general, there can be deficits from plans for a variety of reasons. It's not necessarily that employers are not putting funding into them. Solvency is highly dependent on interest rates and discount rates, because you're discounting the future pension liabilities as if you had to pay them out immediately.

Finance committee  It's a little bit the inverse—

Finance committee  I think I can quickly say that the impact of interest rates is predominantly on plan liabilities. The lower the interest rate, the higher the liabilities that they have to fund, so that's what can lead to deficits.

Finance committee  They do, and pension standards legislation sets minimum requirements for what those payments should be. Under our legislation, when there is a deficit, we provide five years to make those payments, so that if a large deficit emerges—if interest rates go down, for example—it does not lead to an insolvency.

Finance committee  Yes. There are plans that are funded under 100%. The estimated average solvency ratio for all federally regulated DB plans is 109%.

Finance committee  I'm sorry, but I will have to pull that information up quickly as well. I have lots of things open with numbers to answer questions—one moment, please.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes, I can give it to you in writing, or there's a chart that OSFI has on their website that we can provide to the committee.

Finance committee  Thank you. I would just reiterate some of what Mark said. All of the different jurisdictions set different funding requirements. Some, like the federal government, still require 100% solvency funding, but some provinces have moved away from that and now require 85% solvency funding.

Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mark. According to the latest statistics that we have from OSFI on pension coverage in Canada, there are approximately 9,000 defined benefit pension plans. There are around 4.5 million active members as of 2021 in Canada. The 400 plans that I mentioned were only within the federally regulated space, so they are the 7%.

Finance committee  I'm seeing if I can pull up numbers. The member is right. There has been a significant decline in defined benefit pensions in Canada as planned sponsors move towards defined contribution. I just need to grab the information.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good evening. My name is Kathleen Wrye. I'm the director of the pensions policy team at Finance Canada. I'm here today to answer your questions about this private member's bill, Bill C‑228. I would also like to take this opportunity to provide a bit of context on the funding requirements in federal pension legislation, which is the Pension Benefits Standards Act, or PBSA for short, and how the legislation works to protect the pension benefits of defined benefit plan members and retirees.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I think my colleague Mark Schaan is going to start us off.