Does the Retirement Pension Fund Trust Rule from Saunders v. Vautier apply to an employee pension plan?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Kidd v Canada Life, 2010 ONSC 1097 (CanLII):

In Buschau, Deschamps J. explained that the rule from Saunders v. Vautier was not “easily incorporated into the context of employment pension plans” for four reasons: (1) the rule was displaced by legislation regulating the termination of a registered pension plan and the distribution of assets in the fund; (2) a pension fund trust was connected to a pension plan and was “indissociable” from it, and, thus, the trust could not be collapsed with regard to the pension plan; (3) the rule did not take into account the legitimate interest of the employer in the continuation of the pension plan which was an element of how employers compensate their workforce; and (4) the trust funds of an employee pension plan support the social purpose of preserving the financial security of employees in their retirement by providing periodic payments until the employee dies.

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