About the Waterloo pension plan

The University of Waterloo pension plan is a defined benefit pension plan designed to help you save for retirement and supplement government/public pension and personal savings. It will provide a monthly income that is paid to you for your lifetime.

The amount of the pension is determined by a formula based on your earnings and credited service; it is not based on employee and University contributions. This means the amount of your pension is not impacted by the pension fund’s market performance. The pension you will receive is likely to far exceed the contributions you make.

Our plan is a registered pension plan (RPP) under the Income Tax Act, meaning contributions are tax-deductible. The tax relief occurs throughout the year as Canadian Income Tax (CIT) is applied to earnings less pension contributions.

The table below highlights the key differences between a defined benefit and a defined contribution pension plan.

Member contributions, together with those made by the University, are paid into a pension trust fund. The services of professional, money management firms are used to invest the fund.

The Pension and Benefits Committee has the responsibility for setting investment objectives for the pension fund, retaining appropriate investment managers, as well as monitoring the performance of these money managers.

Each year, the plan's consulting actuary analyzes both present and future pension commitments that exist in the pension plan and reports on the adequacy of the pension trust fund. The solvency of the pension fund is governed by requirements of the Pension Benefits Act (Ontario).

Full technical details of the flex pension provision are available in the official pension plan text, which is the authoritative document.

On the committee site, you can view the most recent resource documents, such as actuarial report/results, plan documents, communications to members, and more.