2024 Ontario Budget: Building a Better Ontario

On March 26, 2024, the Ontario Government released the 2024 Ontario Budget, titled “Building a Better Ontario”.

The Minister of Finance, Peter Bethlenfalvy presented the Budget as a plan to rebuild Ontario’s economy “[i]n the face of global economic uncertainty and high interest rates that continue to put pressure on Ontario families”. The Budget includes an update on the implementation of a target benefit framework that is intended to build on best practices for plan funding and governance. The Budget states that draft regulations will be made available for technical review by the sector in summer 2024, taking into consideration feedback received during consultations over the past year.

In conjunction with the Budget release, the Ontario Government introduced Bill 180, Building a Better Ontario Act (Budget Measures), 2024. Bill 180 sets out new provisions and amendments to unclaimed provisions in the Pension Benefits Act relating to target benefit plans, including  requirements for prescribed target benefit documents and policies, criteria for a target benefit, and rules for the conversion of multi-employer pension plan benefits to target benefits. The Government intends for the permanent target benefit framework to come into effect on January 1, 2025. Bill 180 was ordered for second reading as of March 26, 2024.

Additionally, the Budget provides that the Government has allocated an initial $3 billion to Ontario’s new infrastructure bank, the Building Ontario Fund, which will create “opportunities for pension funds to put their members’ investments to work right here in Ontario.” Bill 180 includes the Building Ontario Fund Act, 2024 which sets out that the Building Ontario Fund’s objects include “to invest and seek to attract investment” by “receiving and assessing unsolicited ideas and proposals for infrastructure projects” from qualified institutional investors, including pension funds.

Click here to see the full budget, or click here to see Bill 180.