LETTER ADRESSED TO RETIREES,SURVIVING SPOUSES, DEFERRED MEMBERS AND INTERESTED PERSONS
Ottawa, October 16 2013
Dear Colleague
The Association oversees and defends the interests of retired professors and all others who have the right to the sums claimed in the resolution of May 29 2013. This resolution was sent to you on May 14 with the invitation to attend the Annual General Meeting to be held on May 29 2013. You can consult this resolution on our web site. It was unanimously adopted but with one abstention.
We contend that our requests are always well founded, because the administrators of the Pension Plan did not honour the resolution adopted on July 24 2000, in particular the section that follows.
EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS
MEETING OF JULY 24 2000
*The estimated cash allocation to members is distributed as follows: $34.8million to active members, $34.3 million to retirees and $2.2 million to deferred members. The cash allocations are to be paid out only if a full reserve of 6% remains after the pay-out, otherwise the allocation will be pro-rated to insure that this 6% reserve is maintained. The cash allocations to members are to be paid out in three equal installments, one in 1999, one in 2002 and the last one in 2004. In the event that insufficient funding is in the plan to allow for the cash allocation and the retention of a 6% full reserve, the situation will be reviewed in 2005 and 2006 to ascertain if the balance can be paid while retaining the necessary reserve. No payment will be made beyond 2006.+
Viateur Bergeron presented to the members of the Administrative Committee of the APRUO a memo that Louise Pagé-Valin, then Director of Human Resources, had addressed to the members of the Retirement Pension Plan of the University of Ottawa, on July 26 2000. This memo reveals the decision of the Board of Governors of the University (supra). Herewith the extract from the memo : *The reserve exceeding 6%, the first installment will be distributed when the necessary approvals have been obtained. If the reserve is maintained at least at 6%, a second payment will be effected in 2002 and a final one in 2004. If the surplus is insufficient for a complete payment at one of these dates, a proportional distribution will be effected. If the sums available in 2004 remain insufficient to effect a complete payment, a new assessment of the situation will be made in 2005 and in 2006 to see if the sums could be distributed at this date. If in 2006 the surplus increases sufficiently, the final payment will be made, in total if the surplus permits it or proportionally if it doesn=t+.
The first payment (September 1st 2000) and the second payment (January 1st 2002) were made together in 2003. Following this, all seems to have been done by the Administration as if the rules contained in the pre-cited documents (supra) did not exist for the 3rd payment. Confusion was created by the following facts. The actuaries Buckconsultants presented a report by PowerPoint on the data of year 2005 (as the usual * Actuarial Valuation as at January 1, 2006+). They did not produce a signed report nor send one to the Commission in Toronto. They did not observe the new rules for actuaries that came into effect on the 1st of February 2005.
In 2007, the actuaries of Mercer took up the duties. In their PowerPoint report dated June 11 2007, page 32, the pension fund is, as the popular expression goes, full of money to the point that the University was not permitted to make its usual contribution to the Plan. Herewith the English text : *As a result, The University cannot contribute to the plan until the going-concern excess has been reduced by 25.6M+. One must understand that the actuarial valuation concerned the values that existed on January 1st 2007 and which were the same values as on December 31 2006 and probably several months before, during the course of year 2006. All evaluations presented to the Pension Plan Committee on June 11 2007 concerned the data, the decisions and the revenue and expenditures for year 2006.
In preparing the report for deposit to Toronto, the actuaries discovered an error which they communicated to the University in mid July 2007. The University can make its contribution to the plan for 2007, or not make it by taking a contribution holiday. No one dwells on the possibility of making the 3rdpayment. The University takes advantage of the situation to take a contribution holiday and grants a contribution holiday to the employees, forgetting the retirees. In 2006, the sums available were more than sufficient to make the 3rd payment. The administrators of the pension fund were obligated to respect the obligation which they themselves had created in adopting the resolution adopted on July 24 2000. The omission of the retirees is a very serious error and it must be corrected. This is the request that we have made since several years and we are right to continue until the day that justice is served. If the administrators of our pension fund possess a normal sense of justice and equity and considering the improved value of our pension fund, the administrators should pay what is owed to the persons specified in our resolution of May 29 2013.
On October 2 2013, Le Devoir, as well as The Citizen, published a text from the Canadian Press entitled: *The health of pension plans is improving+. I cite for you the following paragraph: The consulting firm Mercer indicated on Tuesday that their index on the health of pension plans has reached 98% on September 30, its highest level since July 2007. The index which examines the status of a hypothetical pension fund was at 94% in June and at 82% at the beginning of the year.+
The value of our pension plan has improved greatly. Herewith numbers based on market value. On the 1st of January 2011, the value of our pension fund was $1,304,697,000. On June 30 2013, the value of our fund was $1,552,000,000, an increase of more than $247 million over a period of 30 months.
That is why I have confidence in our initiatives to claim what is due to us since several years. In order to succeed the members of the APRUO must support the claims that the members of the Administrative Committee have prepared and have sent to the administrators of our pension fund. We are telling them that recognition of their error(s) will demonstrate their honesty and their sense of justice and equity towards the persons who work or have worked to build and keep the value of the University of Ottawa.
We depend on your membership for the year 2013-2014. We invite you to view our web site at: There you will find useful information as well as the resolution of May 29 2013.
The President, in the name of the Administrative Committee,
Viateur Bergeron
MEMBERSIP FORM (next page)
APRUO
Association des professeurs retraités de l'Université d'Ottawa
Association of Professors Retired from the University of Ottawa
Membership for the current year
It is now the time of the year to renew your membership or to become a member of APRUO. As we are continually updating our membership list, it would be greatly appreciated if you would complete this form and return it to us with your payment of $25.00 for the annual membership dues, for the current year, at your earliest convenience. Also, please keep us informed of any future changes in your address, especially your e-mail address.
Name: ______Last Name First Name
Retired from ______in ______
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My annual membership of $25.00 for the current year enclosed.
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I support APRUO as the official representative of professors retired from the University of Ottawa.
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Please return to: TREASURER-APRUO, 141 Louis Pasteur St., Room 117, Ottawa, ON, Canada K1N 6N5
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