Worse Than It Looks: The True Burden and Risks of Federal Employee Pension Plans

Ottawa’s unfunded liabilities for employee pensions stood at $269 billion at the end of the 2015 fiscal year, far larger than reported, according to a new C.D. Howe Institute study. In “Worse Than It Looks: The True Burden and Risks of Federal Employee Pension Plans,” authors William B.P. Robson and Alexandre Laurin look through the federal government's opaque accounting, and reveal that the unfunded liabilities in federal employee pension plans are almost $118 billion worse than shown on the books.