The NHRIPP is designated as a Specified Ontario Multi-Employer Pension Plan or “SOMEPP”. This designation is available to multi-employer, target-benefit pension plans whose contributions are fixed by collective agreement. Read the Plan’s SOMEPP Notice.

Ontario’s SOMEPP funding rules recognize that pension plans receiving contributions from many employers are less likely to be terminated than plans receiving contributions from only one employer. With hundreds of contributing employers, the bankruptcy or withdrawal of any one of these employers would not result in the Plan’s termination.  

As a SOMEPP, the Plan must be funded on a “going-concern” basis which assumes that it will continue indefinitely.  Solvency funding assumes that the plan is terminated on a specific date and that all benefits are calculated, using current interest rates and paid out immediately. SOMEPPs are exempt from Ontario’s solvency funding rules. Pension benefits would have to be reduced in the remote event that the Plan is terminated while designated as a SOMEPP.