Knight meets Finance Department officials on pension issues
EDMONTON – AUPE President Doug Knight and other leaders of a labour coalition on pensions met this week with senior Alberta Finance Department officials to discuss union members’ serious concerns about proposed changes to provincial legislation affecting public service pension plans.
“We made it very clear that we are not happy about some of the changes being put forward by the government in Bill 32 that could have the effect of reducing the power of pension plan boards to act in the interests of their members,” Knight said.
“We told them that in addition to being concerned about the limits this legislation would put on public service pension plan boards, we see a risk that they could make administration of the plans more subject to political interference,” he said.
“We made the government understand clearly how seriously we take this issue.”
During the meeting Wednesday, Knight and other members of the pension coalition found themselves trapped in the Legislature for a time when emergency crews were called to investigate an envelope full of white powder mailed to the Health Minister’s office. While the substance turned out to be harmless coffee creamer, “the lockdown gave us the chance to make our point to a captive audience, as it were,” Knight noted with a smile.
Bill 32, the Alberta Public Agencies Governance Act, is designed to reform and standardize the governance of Alberta’s many public boards and agencies.
“We told them we understood the overall intent of this piece of legislation,” Knight said. “However, we don’t think its ‘one-size-fits-all’ governance model is appropriate for every board and agency covered by the law, especially pension boards, which are actually trusts.”
Knight said he explained that the governance structure of the Local Authorities Pension Plan, for example, is the result of a historic agreement in 1993 among the Government of Alberta, LAPP employers and mostly unionized plan members to pay off the plan’s then sizeable unfunded liability.
Similar negotiations were held between the government and AUPE with regard to the Public Service Pension Plan.
The unions agreed to the plan – which included members helping to pay for future unfunded liabilities – in return for commitments from the government and employers that the LAPP and PSPP would eventually become pension plans jointly trusteed by employer and employee representatives.
Sixteen years have passed and the plan is still not independent as agreed. In addition, Bill 32 would alter the current LAPP governance model in ways that significantly reduce the ability of stakeholders to direct the plan, and control costs and exposure to financial risks.