Facts about the plan

Learn why BC's Municipal Pension Plan is valuable, sustainable and beneficial to members, their families, communities and the province as a whole.

BC's Municipal Pension Plan members are vital to British Columbia and care deeply about the work they perform for our communities. Members include firefighters, police, nurses and other healthcare workers, city workers, non-teaching staff at schools and colleges, community social service providers and more. British Columbians count on our members every day, and our members count on the Municipal Pension Plan to help them save for their retirement years.

Here are some facts about the plan:

Plan design and governance

• The largest pension plan in Western Canada, with about $71.5 billion in assets.
• Jointly trusteed by both employer and member representatives, who share the governance of the plan.
• The plan is a pre-funded pension plan and is designed so each generation pays in advance for its own basic pension benefits.
• For every dollar a member contributes to the plan, the employer also makes a contribution.
• The plan’s sustainability is monitored and managed through its valuation process. An actuarial valuation is performed at least once every three years. If a valuation reports an unfunded liability, then member and employer contribution rates are increased equally to pay off the unfunded liability over 15 years. The intent is to keep the plan at or near a funding ratio of 100 per cent.
• Cost-of-living adjustments to retiree pensions and access to group health and dental coverage are not pre-funded, and therefore not guaranteed. These are contingent benefits and are offered to retired plan members provided they can be sustainably funded.
• The plan is subject to various legislation, including:
  • Pension Benefits Standards Act
  • Public Sector Pension Plans Act
  • Income Tax Act
  • Wills, Estates and Succession Act
  • Family Law Act

Dollars and good sense

• The plan’s 2021 valuation determined it has a funded ratio of 105.3 per cent on the basis that current contributions continue.
• In addition, the rate stabilization account, which was set up to help offset potential future contribution rate increases, has a balance of about $4.1 billion as at December 31, 2022.
• In 2022, the market value of the plan’s investment portfolio was about $71.5 billion. The plan delivered a 6.7 per cent annualized return over five years, which is above both the 5.2 per cent five-year benchmark and the plan’s 6.25 per cent return objective.
• The plan paid out about $2.9 billion in pensions, benefits and expenses in 2022.
• The average annual pension paid by the plan in 2022 was $18,815.
• More than 120,000 retired Municipal Pension Plan members are receiving their pensions.
• Approximately 75 per cent of the cost of pensions paid by the plan comes from investment returns.
• Use of professional investment managers and the scale of the plan means the Municipal Pension Plan can achieve returns for members often better than members could achieve investing on their own.
• Municipal Pension Plan membership includes approximately 240,000 active members working for about 970 employers.

For more information, read the latest annual report

Doing it right: significant economic and social benefits for BC

• Research from the Canadian Public Pension Leadership Council showed Canadian public sector pension plans supported $11.1 billion in economic activity in British Columbia. This impact on GDP amounted to 3.6 per cent of the economy.^[1]
• The strength of BC’s public sector pension plans helps the province to maintain an AAA credit rating.^[2]
• Individual plan members save more for retirement and have a lower cost of plan administration than typical retirement savers in BC.^[3]
• In 2014, BC’s public sector pension plans made in excess of $3 billion in payments to plan members and their beneficiaries, and 97 per cent of those were BC residents. The payments supported $1.66 billion in provincial GDP and 31,000 jobs.^[4]
• Pension income from BC public sector plans generated $310 million in total government tax revenue.^[5]
• Pension-income spending has as strong an economic impact on provincial GDP as the forestry and logging industry.^[6]
• Research has proven that retirees with stable, predictable incomes are a benefit for their communities and local businesses, because they spend their pension dollars where they live.^[7]

[1] Canadian Public Pension Leadership Council. 2021. Economic Benefits of Canadian Public Sector Pension Plans. Page 40.

[2] de Jong, Michael. 2013. Letter To The Editor: Public Sector Pensions. Vancouver, BC: Vancouver Sun.

[3] The Conference Board of Canada. 2013. Economic Impact of British Columbia’s Public Sector Pension Plans. Ottawa, ON: BC Pension Corporation.

[4] Urban Futures. 2016. Assessing the Economic Impacts of Pension-Income Spending in British Columbia. Vancouver, BC: BC Pension Corporation, 1.

[5] Ibid., 1.

[6] Ibid., 14.

[7] Ibid., 12-13.