Twelve-month waiting period

If you are a Plan member and you stop working for any employer, a waiting period of up to 12 months begins. The purpose of this mandatory period is to allow you to maintain your active membership in the Plan between two employments. If, at the end of this waiting period, you have not worked again for an employer, your active membership ends and decisions must be made regarding your benefits under the Plan.

No credited service accrues during the waiting period, which can last up to 12 months. Since you maintain your active membership during this period, the value of your pension may not be transferred out of the Plan. However, the value of your pension continues to grow, with interest.

The waiting period ends before 12 months have elapsed if you request a pension, die, or resume employment for an employer. In this last case, you will begin to make contributions and accumulate credited service again on your first day back to work.

At the end of the 12-month waiting period, if you are still not working for an employer, your active membership ceases. If you return to work for an employer after your active membership ceases, you will have to meet the eligibility criteria again and accumulate 550 paid hours in a single calendar year before joining the Plan again.

If you work for more than one employer

If you work for more than one employer, the waiting period only begins once you no longer work for any of them.

Past the 12-month waiting period

If you are less than 55 years old at the end of the waiting period corresponding to your active membership termination, you will receive a termination package on which you could be offered two options for the amount accrued in the Plan: a deferred pension payable at retirement or a transfer of the value of your pension.

Deferred pension

You may choose to receive an unreduced pension under the Plan from age 60, or a reduced pension from age 55. To be eligible to receive a deferred pension, the value of your pension must be more than 5% of the YMPE ($3,425 in 2024).

Indexation of deferred pension

The pension accrued for service between April 1, 2003 and December 31, 2018 is indexed at 50% of the rate of inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), from the end of your active membership in the Plan (usually 12 months after the end of your employment) until your 55th birthday. However, this annual indexation may not be less than 0%, nor greater than 2%. Please note that your pension for past service and your pension for service accrued as of January 1, 2019 are not indexed.

Transfer of the value of your pension

If you are less than 55 years of age, you may elect to transfer the value of your pension to one of the following retirement savings vehicles:

• locked-in retirement account (LIRA)
• life income fund (LIF)
• insurance policy
• your new employer’s retirement savings plan, if they agree to the transfer.

Please note that benefit transfer requests must comply with the deadlines specified in the following section.

Refund

If the value of your vested rights is low, that is, less than 20% of the YMPE ($13,700 in 2024) of the year during which your active membership ended, you will also be able to ask that this value be refunded to you or transferred to an RRSP, a Voluntary Retirement Savings Plan (VRSP), or another registered pension plan, if allowed under applicable tax legislation.

As of January 1, 2019, if you decide, as a Plan member, to transfer the value of your vested benefits following termination of participation, your transfer value will be payable in proportion to the Plan’s solvency ratio in effect as at the valuation date. For informational purposes, the most recent actuarial valuation, or latest notice regarding the Plan’s financial situation, submitted to Retraite Québec on December 31, 2022, indicated a solvency ratio of 93.4% for credited service prior to January 1, 2019, and of 84.7% for credited service after December 31, 2018.

However, if you do not have the option to maintain your vested benefits in the Plan, the value of benefits will be paid in full.

Furthermore, if the value of your vested rights is less than or equal to 5% of the YMPE of the year during which your active membership ended, this value is fully refundable in cash or fully transferrable to your RRSP, a VRSP, or another registered pension plan, if allowed under applicable tax legislation.

Steps to follow for termination of employment

You stop working?
A few steps to follow...

1. As soon as your employment ends, your employer must inform the Plan administrator of your termination date for each function you held in his establishment.
2. A waiting period of up to 12 months begins. If you work for more than one employer, the waiting period only begins once you have stopped working for the last of these employers.
3. At the end of the waiting period, the appointed Plan administrator will send (without your needing to request it but only if your employer informed the administrator about your termination date for every function you held), within 60 days, a document asking you to specify what should be done with your pension benefits.

Moving?
Don’t forget to notify the appointed Plan administrator so that you may be easily reached at the end of the waiting period. You can update your new home address in the Personal Zone area of the website, under the Changes to personal information section.

4. You will then have 90 days to reply, indicate your choice (deferred pension or transfer of the value of your pension) and return the required documents. If you do not reply, the deferred pension option will be applied by default.

However, you may request from now on, at any time up to the 90th day following the date that precedes your normal retirement date by 10 years, the transfer of the value of your vested benefits outside the Plan. Please note that the value of your benefits will be recalculated and may increase or decrease accordingly.

Questions and answers about termination of employment

What happens if I return to work for an employer DURING the waiting period?
The waiting period ends and you resume Plan contributions on your first day of work.

What happens if I return to work for an employer AFTER the waiting period?
Please refer to Returning to work for an employer section.

Must I wait for the waiting period to end before I may draw a pension?
No. You may request the payment of your pension as soon as you become eligible, i.e., as of age 55.