On March 27, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) announced a series of temporary measures in response to the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these measures, and in an unprecedented move, the OSFI announced the full suspension of all transfer value payments until further notice.

Dear Clients and Collaborators:

Our experts are working for you during this unprecedented crisis. We are fully operational, remotely, during our normal business hours.

To help you navigate this crisis and deal with all types of unusual events and situations:

Last week, we asked our remun members the following question: “How is your organization responding to COVID-19?” Here is a summary of our Canadian members’ responses.

Dear Clients and Collaborators,

For several years, Normandin Beaudry has kept an updated business continuity plan to ensure the recovery or continuation of its operations in the event of a disaster or emergency.

Normandin Beaudry intends to comply with the series of measures and restrictions implemented by public health authorities to slow the spread of COVID-19 and, thus, protect the health and safety of its employees and their families.

The Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) recently modified the standard of practice regarding the disclosures to include in actuarial valuation reports for the funding of pension plans. These new disclosures are intended to make plan sponsors aware of the various funding risks to which their pension plans are exposed. Plan sponsors will have to consider threats to their plans’ future financial condition under plausible adverse scenarios.

For the 2019 tax year, Canadian taxpayers could be entitled to a tax credit ranging from 4% to 20% of medical expenses incurred for themselves or their dependants. The credit is subject to certain conditions and depends on the province or territory of residence.

A new agreement has been reached between the Association québécoise des pharmaciens propriétaires (AQPP, the provincial association of pharmacist-owners), insurers, and third-party payers. This is the first major update to occur since the creation of Quebec’s Public Prescription Drug Insurance (PPDIP) in 1997.

Since January­ 1, 2020, defined contribution (“DC”) pension plan sponsors may offer variable benefits under the Pension Benefits Act of Ontario from their pension plan. The variable benefit rules allow members of a DC pension plan to receive retirement income directly from the plan upon retirement, if allowed by the pension plan, as opposed to being required to transfer the balance of their DC account to an authorized vehicle or use it to purchase an annuity.

Several hot topics in the drug insurance industry caught our attention this past year, with many showing no signs of cooling off. We’ll be following things closely in 2020!

Here are the top 10 developments of 2019, in no particular order.

Are you one of the many regular readers who expect these parameters to come in pyramid form? This year, we modernized the way we present key social security parameters. This new version is available in an electronic format. It has links to many pages with highly relevant content (click on the dog-eared page icons).