Letter from Celine Chiovitti, Executive Vice President & Head of Pensions

April showers bring May flowers, but they also sparked the 2022 Virtual Annual Meeting on April 11 and an early celebration of OMERS 60th anniversary on April 18. On behalf of the OMERS leadership team, a sincere thank you to those who joined the Annual Meeting. Over 1,500 members tuned in as our presenters walked through our 2021 results and what the future of the Plan looks like. If you were not able to join the Annual Meeting, you can watch the full video recording on omers.com.

I was pleased to join several other Administration Corporation (AC) and Sponsors Corporation (SC) leaders at the Annual Meeting to highlight our commitment to members and how our member community now spans five generations! Yes, OMERS members range from the pre-boomers, who were born before 1945, to Gen Z, who were born after 1997, and every generation in between. In fact, OMERS oldest pensioner is 106 years old and our youngest member is only 16!

I also shared a few of the ways we’re improving our services to ensure all members are supported in preparing for your retirement, and the many other ways we support both active and retired members throughout various life circumstances. Our myOMERS portal gives members who value automatic and digital service access to their pension information 24/7 and we recently piloted a live-chat function to provide members with a new channel to connect with our Member Experience team. We also streamlined our internal processes to improve the pension estimate experience and built an enhanced retirement planner so you can see a holistic view of your financial health in retirement anytime in your myOMERS account.

One of the questions we have been receiving from retired members is about how we calculate the inflation adjustment that is provided to pensioners each year. The 2022 OMERS annual inflation increase was calculated as 2.74% using the average of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the 12-month period ending in October 2021 compared with the average of the CPI for the 12-month period ending in October 2020. Every year in late December, retired members and survivors are notified of the new annual inflation increase and upcoming January 1 payment in their Annual Statement of Pension and on omers.com. We have more information on inflation protection on omers.com where you can learn more about how indexation is calculated.

Our formula for providing inflationary increases is embedded in the OMERS Plan text and is similar to how the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) applies its increase.

Our focus for the future is anchored in our commitment to you, and in ensuring that every OMERS member can retire with peace of mind knowing that you have access to secure retirement income for life. Our entire Pensions team is standing by to assist with your OMERS pension. In fact, our North Star aspiration is to “be the most trusted partner in empowering our members through their pension journey from hire to retire and beyond.” This means we are always striving to be the most service-centric organization in Ontario.

And if you haven’t already heard, the OMERS SC welcomed a new CEO, Laurie Hutchinson. Laurie is a seasoned pensions professional who has spent her career working with defined benefit pension plans and helping to strengthen Canada’s retirement system. The AC and SC leadership teams work closely together to ensure the Plan remains sustainable, affordable and meaningful for decades to come.

It was an honour to speak at the Annual Meeting, and I look forward to “May flowers” and meeting more of you at OMERS events, conferences and education sessions throughout the year.