Employer enrolment

Eligibility

Our pension plan welcomes a great diversity of employers, including local government organizations such as municipalities and improvement districts, educational institutions such as colleges, Provincial institutes, and school districts, health or social services organizations, and unions and associations representing employees in these sectors.

If your organization is similar to these categories but not an exact match, you may still be eligible to join. Please contact policy@pensionsbc.ca to enquire about eligibility.

For police officers and firefighters, please visit the Group 5 page.

Enrolment criteria

To be eligible for plan participation, your organization must meet two of the following criteria:

• Carrying out a public purpose or function, or required to carry out a public purpose or function as required by legislation
• Listed as a public sector employer in legislation
• Financed in part by public funds

Enrolment date

If the board approves your request to join the plan, your plan participation begins on the effective date approved by the board. If your organization is approved to join the plan retroactively, you will be required to pay retroactive contributions. You may also be required to collect retroactive contributions from your employees. Retroactive contributions will be credited to your employees and allow them to start growing their pension benefits sooner.

Refer to the Responsibilities section for more information.

Employee enrolment

Your organization will also need to determine which classes of employees you want to participate in the plan, such as employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement or all employees.

You will then need to identify which of your employees are eligible to be enrolled in the plan. They must be enrolled if they are any of the following:

• Full-time permanent employees
• Employed continuously full time for one year
• Part-time employees who have completed two years of continuous employment with one or more plan employers, and earned at least 35 per cent of the year’s maximum pensionable earnings in the last two years (they may waive enrolment in writing)

These eligibility rules are the minimum enrolment requirements outlined in the plan rules. However, you can pass a resolution allowing for earlier enrolment. For example, you might determine that part-time employees don’t need to meet the two-years-of-continuous-employment requirement and can be offered enrolment immediately. You could also negotiate with your employees or union to offer earlier enrolment.

Employees who meet the eligibility criteria at the time your organization is approved to join the plan will have a one-time option to waive enrolment within 90 days of the following, whichever is later:

• the effective date of your organization’s plan participation, or
• the date we notify you of approval.

If your employees do not waive enrolment in writing within this period, they must be automatically enrolled. If any of your employees already contribute to the plan through another plan employer, they will fall under the mandatory enrolment rules and must be enrolled. They will not be able to opt out. New employees hired after your enrolment start date must also be enrolled according to eligibility criteria in the plan rules. Employees who waive enrolment may, at a later date, decide to join the plan going forward.

Persons who are considered “connected” or “related” to the employer under the Income Tax Act (Canada) are generally not eligible to enrol in the plan (refer to the Employer Enrolment Application Eligible Employees section in Appendix A).