Bill 68 OMERS Update

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The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

Dear OMERS member,

The recommendations that came out of the OMERS governance review were, by and large, good for union plan members and for OMERS as a whole. The proposed changes would have restored the sponsors at OMERS as a true bargaining board and ensured that plan members retained their voice and vote share in a jointly sponsored plan.

But when the Conservative government buried governance changes to OMERS in its omnibus Bill 68, it cherry-picked which recommendations to implement. Specifically, it chose to re-impose on the members of the new Sponsors Council a fiduciary duty to members and employers – the very thing the review rightly identifies as the problem.

The Conservatives also ignore other important recommendations and suggest further changes would be made by regulation. This could put more of OMERS’ governance under direct government control.

Every union represented in the plan agrees: these parts of Bill 68 won’t be good for plan members or for OMERS itself.

Click to send a message to Rob Flack, the minister responsible for OMERS, and demand that he implement the recommendations of the review to protect the plan and the voices of its members.

In solidarity,
Fred Hahn, President, CUPE Ontario

JOIN US: Public Health Day of Action at Queens Park

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The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

The CUPE Ontario Public Health Workers Committee is heading back to Queen’s Park on November 26, 2025 to deliver a message to our Ontario MPPs that we are important to the communities we serve, and we need to be funded properly to provide the wide array of services Public Health is know, or not known for!

We are holding media interviews in the morning to raise awareness about Public Health hot topics including the resurgence of measles, alarming sexual health trends, and water safety of non-municipal drinking water systems in rural Ontario.

In the afternoon, we will be meeting with MPPs for a round table discussion.

How can you help?

This year we are asking you, our fellow Public Health Workers, to send a message to your local MPP asking them, as a someone living in their riding, to attend this meeting.

Use the link here find your MPP.

Communication guide is included on how to send them an email with your message and how a follow up phone call to their office is the icing on the cake.

We want our voices heard and this is a way to make it happen.  If you have followed the progress of this group, you know that we are not going to stop advocating for the rejuvenation of our public health system.

Nov 26 Public Health Day of Action is just the beginning! We are preparing an action to engage all 5000 CUPE public health workers to organize and collectively advocate for our profession. We are deeply concerned that if we leave Public Health in the hands of the politicians, there won’t be much of Public Health left!

We are asking you to join your voice to ours… please, reach out to your MPP and encourage them to join us at the table at Queen’s Park.

In solidarity,
Merima Kostecki
Chair – CUPE Ontario Public Health Committee

A Collective Win at OMERS

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The following correspondence was received this week from CUPE Ontario: 

The OMERS Governance Review was made public this week and its recommendations came as very good news to CUPE members in the plan. Our worst fears about the review didn’t materialize and its recommendations signal, for the most part, what we were looking.

But this favourable outcome didn’t happen by accident. All the successes – and the expected changes that will guarantee OMERS works for workers – are down to you and your efforts as members of the OMERS plan; and to the skill and expertise that we’ve built among CUPE Ontario leaders, our dedicated staff and CUPE national staff.

Together we undertook a campaign to ensure our voices were heard. CUPE Ontario was the only member of the Sponsors’ Corporation (SC) to make its written contribution to the review public. Robert Poirier, the OMERS governance review’s advisor, even recognized the comprehensiveness and expertise in our submission.

But CUPE Ontario went even further: our submission was accompanied by more than 60,000 names of CUPE members who supported our demands for change and accountability at OMERS. We printed out a list of names out and sent it along with our submission. Those thousands of names sent a clear message and were, on their own, an impressive achievement. Getting the names was the work of an entire team of activists, with special recognition going to Krista Laing, OMW chair, who led this initiative that made such a difference.

Among the changes we won:

  • the Sponsors Corporation will be replaced by a Sponsors Council, which ends corporate confidentiality requirements and marks a return of powers to the unions and employers
  • a restored co-chair model and the establishment of the council a real bargaining board
  • current corporate bylaws will be replaced by a charter
  • an end to honoraria for sponsors’ representatives
  • the addition of non-voting observer seats to the council
  • OMERS Administration Council will continue to fund actuarial and legal advice that the Sponsors Council needs

OMERS has been given until June 2027 as the timeline to complete all the changes called for in the review. Some will require changes to the OMERS Act, others will be carried out by ministerial order and changes to regulations. George Cooke, the board chair of OMERS Administration Corporation, will stay on to oversee the transition and review advisor Robert Poirier will stay on to shepherd the process.

The next steps will require our vigilance. One example: this Globe and Mail story about the OMERS review claim, in the last paragraphs, that no employee sponsors had complaints about OMERS’ returns or performance. That is patently untrue and we will correct the record.

As with every change, the devil will be in the details. The Ford government is ultimately responsible for creating the path to transition. We will be watching them closely – and they know it – to make sure that no unintended consequences will hurt our ability to control and influence the plan that manages the retirement future of tens of thousands of CUPE members.

Congratulations to everyone who worked to make this win possible.

In solidarity,
CUPE Ontario