| TUESDAY MAY 17 |
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8 AM - 9:15 AM Tuesday Keynote Speaker
| THE BEST PLACE TO WORK
In his highly-acclaimed new book, The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace, award-winning psychologist Ron Friedman surveyed the world’s most successful organizations, identifying key practices that position them to thrive. In this engaging keynote, Dr. Friedman reveals the highlights, offering a surprising look at the emerging science of workplace excellence. You’ll discover why great workplaces reward failure, how turning colleagues into close friends can bolster your bottom line, and why smart managers aim to complicate rather than simplify their employees’ lives. You’ll learn why Dreamworks pays employees to decorate their desks, why the Boston Consulting Group flags analysts who don’t take paid time off (PTO), and why Radio Flyer provides mileage reimbursement for employees who ride their bikes. By the end of this presentation, not only will you and your team think differently about your workplace, you’re bound to come away with a variety of actionable insights that you can immediately put to use. Ron Friedman, , Ph.D. Award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation. |
| 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM | Smultanious sessions 1-2-3
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Session 1
Pension
| Partners in Enhancing the CPP: Both the Willing and Those Opposed
Join Wes Sheridan, the former Finance Minister from PEI and Hassan Yussuff, the current President of the Canadian Labour Congress, as they take you down the six year path toward CPP enhancement. Wes Sheridan worked on the effort from the inside as a member at the table of Finance Ministers as they debated the merits of the proposed expansion. Hassan Yussuff worked tirelessly on the perimeter of these talks, attempting to show the detractors how important these changes were to young Canadians. Come and enjoy a very different perspective on how these discussions have evolved. Wesley Sheridan, Principal, Morneau Shepell, Former PEI Finance Minister
Hassan Yussuff, President, Canadian Labour Congress
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Session 2 Benefits
| Cui Bono? The Politics and Economics of Reshaping the Public-Private Mix in Canadian Healthcare Canadian health care is unique in several respects, and the results are not flattering. The Commonwealth Fund ranks us 10th of 11 rich countries in overall performance and efficiency, and last in timeliness of access. There are major gaps in public coverage, notably pharmacare, rehabilitation, and community-based home care. Widespread calls for transformation have gone unheeded in practice; despite doubling (in real terms) total spending between 1998 and 2010, major problems have gone unsolved. Coincidentally or otherwise, federal leadership in health care has steadily eroded. The new federal government promises a return to a more cooperative federalism, and there are calls from the policy community for the expansion of publicly funded health care, especially in the areas of drugs and community care. This presentation will explore the rationale behind various reform proposals, the politics of major reforms, the economic implications of proposed changes, the "winning conditions" for governments, and implications for employers, employees, and insurers. It will conclude with a tentative assessment of the likelihood of significant change in the next 3-5 years. Steven Lewis, Président, Access Consulting Ltd. Learning Objectives - Increase understanding of the public-private dynamics in Canadian health care and the gaps in medicare
- Provide an overview of the policy options for improving Canadians' access to health care
- Explore the politics of policy-making in health care in the context of a new federal government
- Stimulate discussion of what the private sector needs to do to remain a valued contributor to Canadian health care
Who should attend this session
- Insurers
- Suppliers of drugs, devices, and services
- Employers and employees in organizations providing health benefits
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Session 3 Investment
| Currency allocations and the role of portfolio hedging Recent extreme currency moves are creating a strong undercurrent of investor uncertainty in Canada. Are the choppy foreign exchange markets making it more difficult to navigate the currency policy decision? As a Canadian based investor, how should you view the foreign currency exposures in your portfolio? Should you hedge? How much? When? Unfortunately there does not seem to be simple answer to these questions. The speakers believe that there are many factors to consider when reviewing how much currency exposure should be included in your portfolio and that it should not be viewed as a binary decision. Based on our experiences, we believe investors could benefit from managing their currency risks in a thoughtful and deliberate manner.
Dean Liotta, Vice President Relationship Manager, Franklin Templeton
Mark Abbott, Vice President, Senior Portfolio Manager - Currency, State Street Global Advisors
Learning Objectives:
- How currency fluctuations affect my investments
- Managing risks – what is currency risk?
- Why manage currency exposures and what are the potential benefits
- Currency management techniquesHow do you hedge and what are the implications
Who should attend this session
- CIO’s
- Investment staff
- Consultants and trustees
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| 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM | Simultaneous Sessions 4-5-6 |
Session 4 Pension | Decumulation: Maximizing the power of your DC Plan The boomers are nearing retirement, but will they be able to leave your organization? Will new talent be able to prosper? While DC plans can be an excellent tool to help with workforce management, most are not being managed to their full potential. This session will explore the many facets of decumulation and unveil innovations and developments designed to get members to a more successful retirement. Janice Holman, Principal, Eckler LTd
Zaheed Jiwani, Senior Vice-President, Greystone Managed Investments Inc.
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Session 5 Benefits | Improving Mental Health at Work: Promising Practices for Employers to Adopt This informative session will feature promising practices, identified by over 40 Canadian workplaces, to address mental health in the workplace. These strategies include implementation of the National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace (the Standard), a strategic and comprehensive framework that employers can use to protect and promote psychological health and safety of their workers.
The session will also allow participants to hear the accounts of two organizations – one large and one small, namely, Carleton University and AGS Rehab Solutions, around their implementation journey with the Standard. Participants will walk away with practical tips to get their journey started in their workplaces. Sapna Mahajan, Director, Prevention and Promotion Initiatives – Workplace, Mental Health Commission of Canada
Ed Kane, Assistant VP, University Services, Carleton University
Addie Greco-Sanchez, President, AGS Rehab Solutions Inc. |
Session 6 | Harvesting the Illiquidity Premium In a world of low interest rates and uncertain equity markets, institutional investors are looking for every opportunity to supplement their portfolio returns. In this session, we review the rationale for the illiquidity premium and the benefits to investors who are able to provide long-term capital to private markets. We’ll talk about the types of private assets that institutional investors should be considering and their characteristics, including private fixed income, real estate, global infrastructure and private equity. We’ll provide a framework for setting an illiquidity risk budget to determine an appropriate level of private assets in your portfolio. Finally, we’ll discuss key implementation issues, including considerations related to manager selection. Eugene Lundrigan, Chief Operating Officer, Sun Life Investment Management Inc.
Todd Saulnier, Principal, Mercer |
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Lunch Session | IF YOU LOVE YOUR CHILDREN - Save for Retirement
It is not in our nature to save, but will the failure to adequately prepare for retirement leave Canada’s cherished social safety net in taters for future generation? Can we afford not to act? This session examines how longevity, health care inflation and a shift in demographics determines the choices we need to make today to ensure our children’s children can afford to live in a society that embodies Canadian values and social norms.
The speakers is a proud Canadian and passionate about finding ways to reduce future pensioner poverty while maintaining crucial social programs, including health care, without unfairly burdening future generations. Learning Objectives:
- Issues and trends facing our children’s generations, including precarious contract and part-time employment and the decline of workplace pensions and benefits
- Understanding how longevity is changing societal priorities and individual choices
- Practical solutions for the road ahead
Derek Dobson, Chief Executive Officer and Plan Manager, CAAT Pension Plan |
| 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM | Simultaneous Sessions 7-8-9 |
Session 7 Pension | Asset/Liability Studies
Description
Plan sponsors and trustees face a myriad of risks as they manage the pension plans for which they are responsible. Asset/Liability Studies are a valuable tool to help stakeholders assess and quantify key risks, including funding risk and investment policy risk. As such, Asset/Liability Studies are effective in holistically evaluating pension risks and determining strategic asset allocations. This session will address how Asset/Liability Studies work and provide practical examples of how they are used to support pension risk management. Julianna Spiropoulos, Associate Partner, Aon Hewitt Learning Objectives
Session attendees will learn:
• What an Asset/Liability Study is and how it works
• Where these studies fit within a pension governance framework
• How Asset/Liability Studies support pension risk management
• Practical examples of how these studies are used
Who should attend
• Pension plan trustees, fiduciaries and administrators
• Human Resources and Finance professionals |
Session 8 Benefits | Health technology assessment (HTA); challenges to address the needs of drug plan managers Typically, health technology assessments (HTA) for drugs are used to provide recommendations to public payers to inform final funding decisions. Transformative changes happening within the drug environment will require new ways of evaluating drugs and managing utilization in clinical practice. This session will highlight some of the changes and challenges within drug HTA particularly as new drugs are entering the market earlier, compared to historical practices, along with increasing patient and clinician engagement. As national policy positions are being discussed, there is also a need for other types of HTA work and tools to support that work. Over time, this work will have an increasing impact in the private sector. Brent Fraser, Vice President, Pharmaceutical Reviews, CADTH Learning Objectives - Participants will have a greater understanding of HTA challenges within the drug sector, and its impact for public and private drug plans.
- Participants will have a greater awareness of HTA work being done through CADTH and information that is available to them.
- Participants will hear about work done globally that is helping to address these challenges within the drug sector.
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Session 9 Investment | Using your risk budget more efficiently “NSHEPP uses uncommon strategies to get more expected return from their risk budget. Long term results have been amongst Canada’s best despite NSHEPP’s small internal team. Come hear: - Calvin Jordan (NSHEPP) describe NSHEPP’s strategies and their risk-budget based rationale; and
- Yvan Breton (Mercer) describe how outsourcing can make similar strategies accessible to most DB pension plans
Learning objectives: - What investment exposures consume your risk budget most (and least) efficiently?
- How leverage can increase your expected returns without increasing funding risk.
- How you can manage liquidity as you diversify more fully into alternative assets.
- How can DB plans with limited internal resources outsource implementation of more complex strategies?
Target audience:
This session is aimed at those responsible for setting DB pension investment strategy – whether staff or Board members. |
| 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM | Break and Exhibition |
| 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM | Simultaneous Sessions 10-11-12 |
Session 10
Pension | Target Benefit Plans and Innovation in Pensions
This session will feature experts on target benefit plans from Canada and the Netherlands. The Dutch target benefit pension model, known as collective defined contribution, has been around for about 10 years now. We will hear from a Dutch pension law expert regarding the Dutch model – what it is, how it has performed, and lessons learned. Further, the speakers will examine various features of target benefit plans in the two jurisdictions, including governance, funding, administration, communication and risk allocation. Henriëtte De Lange, Pensioen is nu, Netherlands
Jana Steele, Partner, Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
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Session 11 Benefits | What's going on in Small and Mid-Sized Drug Plans - A broker/client perspective In recent years, many employers have faced relatively flat drug costs, but that's rapidly changing. The challenges faced by small to mid-size employers and their advisors are different from those encountered in the past, as well as from their larger counterparts. The future is not bleak, but a lot of work is required in order to protect access to drug benefits.
Plan utilization continues to increase, and higher-cost drug claims are driving big renewal rate increases. The industry drug pool has had good initial success in collecting data and protecting insurers, but it cannot stand still and must continue to evolve to really aid employers of all sizes.
- Insurers are raising stop-loss attachment points as well as credibility levels at renewal to try and control pricing increases. Renewal rate negotiations can be tough when catastrophic claims occur and insurers have different practices in handling non-recurrent claims and coordinating claims with provincial drug plans. This makes long term planning difficult.
- Smaller employers are facing tough decisions about both cost and risk, and how they should fund drug plans. In response, advisors are suggesting lower drug caps, exclusionary formularies, or moving to "defined contribution" plans such as Health Spending Accounts.
- Many advisors focus only on the short term financial costs. They incorrectly assume provincial drug plans will take care of employees, only to discover it's not always that simple.
Is there a future for fully-pooled group drug insurance? This session will explore the issues, some possible solutions, and the roles for government, insurers and advisors that deal with smaller employers
Dave Patriarche, Mainstay Insurance Brokerage Inc.
Attend this session to: - Develop an appreciation for the unique challenges faced by small and mid-sized employers
- Learn how the insurers have failed clients by not integrating with all the provincial drug plans available
- Avoid the pitfalls that advisors and plan sponsors fall into around drug caps, what solutions are there?
- Understand the changes (and effects) that the market is experiencing
Wo should attend: Those that are affected by the benefits industry, be it advisors/consultants, employers and even insurers but also pertinent to those in the pharma world that pays for the drugs in the private market |
Session 12 Investment | European trends in ESG and implications for plan sponsors As Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) is moving up on pension funds’ agenda on a worldwide scale, European countries have taken a pioneer role in Responsible Investing: Scandinavian players stand out in shaping the Responsible Investing sector and set standards for implementation in Continental Europe and beyond. Institutional investor demand is driving market growth and empowering product innovation. The adoption of long-term and targeted Responsible Investing strategies are signalizing changes in investment attitude. As Responsible Investing is moving mainstream, transparency becomes a critical requirement for assessing Responsible Investing products in the absence of a standardized definition. How can transparency be encouraged? Which sustainability strategies have the most growth potential and what are the major European trends to keep an eye on? Annemarie Arens, General Manager, LUXFLAG Colin Spinney, Treasurer, Dalhousie University |
| 6:30 PM - 7:00 PM | Reception at the the Canadian Museum of History |
| 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM | FORUM Gala Dinner at the Canadian Museum of History
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