Ontario’s Superintendent of Financial Services has
issued a Notice of Intended Decision that would require a company
plan to count vacation pay as base pay for the purposes of
calculating a pension entitlement.
Background
A retired member of the Pension Plan for Employees of Hewlett
Packard Enterprise Canada Co. (the “Plan”) challenged
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Canada Co. (the
“Administrator”) with respect to its calculation of his
pension entitlement. On termination of his employment, the retired
member appears to have received a lump sum payment in respect of
his unused vacation time. According to the Notice of Intended Decision
(“NOID”), the Plan terms provide that a pension is
calculated using final average earnings, determined based on
remuneration paid to the member including “base pay”.
Vacation pay was not specifically excluded from the Plan’s
definition of final average earnings.
