Pension Surplus Update
(e-mail sent to McMaster Community on August 7, 2002)

Memo to Active Plan members

This memo is to advise active members of the pension plan that we have just received an initial response from CCRA advising that for those active members wishing to apply their surplus share to obtain past service credits, CCRA will not allow inclusion of non-vested service with a prior (non-McMaster) employer (category 3) earned prior to 1990.

CCRA did not indicate that this issue would be a problem in prior discussions with them but they did explicitly state that they reserved the right to revise whatever opinions they initially provided once the formal application was submitted and reviewed.

The University will be writing to CCRA in the next two weeks to advise of its opposition to the position taken by CCRA and will engage in discussions with staff of the CCRA policy area in an attempt to have this service allowed as additional past service.  However, if we are not successful, we may not be able to include non-vested service with another employer (category 3) that occurred prior to 1990.

As this issue is likely to be of great importance to some individuals, we will make sure we provide you with developments in this area as they occur.
 

Les Robb for the Employee Groups
Simon Ouellet for the University

[The Contact for this message is Dina LoPresti, ext. 27253]