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As members may be aware, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Paul Calandra, has ordered a review of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) which manages and provides pension services to municipal employees, municipal council members and Metrolinx employees. The plan has over 1000 participating employees and more than 600,000 active, deferred and retired members.
The review comes after several organizations representing plan members expressed concerns about the decisions made by OMERS with respect to the management of the pension plan including a lack of transparency in decision-making and accountability within the Sponsors Corporation to stakeholders which came shortly after OMERS announced changes to contribution rates.
On November 22, 2024, Robert Poirier was appointed as the Special Advisor for the OMERS Governance Review with a term that expires on September 19, 2025. According to the news release, the review will look at the representation and effective governance of the two corporations that govern OMERS as well as look at what best practices in pension governance OMERS could apply. Outside of the scope of the review is any financial details decisions, such as contribution rates.
As members will know, we have long advocated for changes to the composition of the Sponsors Corporation (SC), one of two corporations governing OMERS. The Non-Union/Management category of OMERS members, of which many AMCTO members are a part, is the largest group without representation at the corporation level. We have identified this as one of the key issues in our Issue Profile.
AMCTO intends to participate in the review by making a submission to the Reviewer. We are looking forward to communicating the interests of our membership and working with OMERS to help build a more secure and sustainable municipal sector.