Every year, your Trustees review the Plans to ensure they are as well-positioned as possible to serve you, today and for the decades to come. This year, we have two meaningful updates to share.
1. Your Pension Plan is transitioning to a Target Benefit Plan, effective September 1, 2026.
2. Effective January 1, 2027, all member and participant support will be provided by a dedicated team based in Edmonton, Alberta.
Both of these updates reflect the same conviction that has guided these Plans since 1943: that the people who give their professional lives to Christian education deserve benefit plans that are carefully stewarded, built to last, and always there when you need them, for life.
What is Changing and Why
These are fully Canadian Plans, sponsored in Canada, governed in Canada, and built to serve the Canadian Christian education community. In 2021, the Plans were entrusted to a Canadian sponsor known as the Christian Education Benefit Solutions Society (CEBSS). In 2023, a Canadian Managing Director was hired and an Edmonton office was established.
Having the full participant support team based in Canada is the natural next step in that journey, bringing the people who support you into full alignment with the community these Plans exist to serve.
This decision is about your Trustees fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility: ensuring these Plans are as well-positioned as possible, administratively and relationally, to serve you in the future.
Your Pension Plan has always been built around one commitment: a pension you will receive for life, based on your years of service and earnings. That commitment is not changing.
Since 1972, the Canadian Christian Education Pension Plan (CEPP) has operated as a Defined Benefit Plan. The Trustees already have the responsibility to make decisions about benefit and contribution levels to keep the Plan health over the long term, and they have done so carefully and consistently.
A Target Benefit Plan (TBP) works the same way, with one important addition: it comes with greater structure, clearer policy requirements, and increased communication obligations. In practical terms, this means your Trustees will have a more formalized framework for the decisions they already make, and you will hear from us more regularly about the Plan's financial health.
The Plan's goal remains the same, for you to have a pension benefit for life. What this transition to a Target Benefit Plan adds is greater transparency and accountability in how we steward it.
This transition is happening because the Ontario government recently passed new legislation that formally recognizes pension plans like ours and gives them a clearly defined home in regulation. This is a proactive, planned step, taken from a position of stability and sound funding and has been on the Trustee's radar for a while.
The Trustees chose to make this transition now because the Plan is in a strong position.
Yes. Because the Plan is registered in Ontario, it is governed by Ontario's pension legislation. That means these updates apply consistently to all participants, wherever you live in Canada.
Yes. The Ontario government passed this legislation recognizing that plans like ours needed a formal, permanent regulatory home. There are currently 68 multi-employer pension plans in Ontario alone, representing over one million participants. Many of these plans have already made this transition with ease and we expect other similar plans will go through this same process as the framework continues to be adopted across the sector.
In practice, your Plan has already operated as a Target Benefit Plan for some time. The Ontario government previous gave plans like ours a special designation, recognizing that the existing legislation had not kept pace with how plans like ours were already being responsibly managed and operating. This transition brings the formal regulation in line with the reality of how your Plan has always been stewarded. It is not a new direction. It is a formal recognition of the direction you have always been in.
Plan documents are available in the Resource Centre, and are filed with FSRA where they are publicly accessible.
What is Not Changing
On an individual participant level, no. There is nothing you need to do. Both of these transitions are handled by your Trustees and the team administering your benefits on your behalf. Your pension and/or health coverage continues and your member portal remains exactly as it is today.
For school contacts, we will be connecting separately regarding updating forms and contact information.
No. Your benefits are not changing. Your pension, health coverage, claims process, and portal access all continue exactly as they do today. The Trustees overseeing the Plans are the same and their commitment to you is the same.
No. Portal access continues without interruption.
No. Claims processing continues without interruption. The team you currently rely on remains fully in place.
Your Pension and Long-Term Security
Yes. A pension benefit for life remains the goal of this Plan, and that has not changed.
Under a Target Benefit Plan, as under any pension plan, benefit levels are not unconditionally locked in, and that was also true of your previous Defined Benefit Plan.
Any pension plan that faces severe, prolonged financial difficulty can be wound down, and the consequences of a wind-down are far more serious than any adjustment a well-governed plan would make long before reaching that point. A Target Benefit Plan is specifically structured to prevent that outcome. By giving Trustees clearer tools and earlier decision points, it is designed to keep the Plan sustainable, so that a benefit for life remains exactly what you receive.
The main thing that changes is that we will now communicate with you more regularly about how the Plan is doing and how decisions are being made. That is not a cause for concern. It is a commitment to transparency that your Trustees believe you deserve and are entitled to.
The contributions you have made and the earnings you have accumulated do not change as a result of this transition. Your accrued service and earnings remain the foundation of your pension calculation.
Yes. When the Plan builds surplus above its target funding level, the Trustees have the ability to improve benefits, including cost-of-living adjustments and other enhancements. Strong Plan performance benefits participants directly. This has happened before, and the Target Benefit Plan structure gives the Trustees a clearer framework for making those improvements.
Yes. The Plan has provided cost-of-living increases to participants in the past when performance allowed for it. Plan contributions and benefit levels have also been thoughtfully redesigned over the years to reflect the evolving pension landscape in Canada, always with long-term sustainability in mind.
For previous Plan updates, visit the Resource Centre.
Your Trustees monitor the Plan's financial health on a quarterly basis. One of the structural additions in a Target Benefit Plan is a Provision for Adverse Deviation, which is a built-in buffer that gives the Trustees a clear framework for when and how to act.
Think of it as a margin of safety. The Plan would need to move outside that buffer before the Trustees would consider any changes to benefits or contributions. The Funding and Benefits Policy, which will be updated and made available in the Resource Centre, will define this buffer and will be shared once it is finalized.
Any action taken would follow a careful review by the Trustees and their advisors, and would be communicated directly to participants well in advance.
Cost-of-living adjustments are one of the ways the Trustees can improve benefits when the Plan performs well and builds surplus above its target funding level for an extended period of time. This remains true under the Target Benefit Plan, and in face, the new structure gives the Trustees a clearer framework for when and how those improvements can be made.
The Trustees review the Plan’s financial health on a quarterly basis. This ongoing monitoring is part of how they fulfill their responsibility to you as fiduciaries of the Plan.
Yes, and more regularly than before. The Target Benefit Plan framework requires Trustees and the Plan Sponsor to file valuations at regular intervals and imposes greater communication requirements than were previously in place. Any changes that affect your benefit will be communicated to you directly and in advance.
No. Your years of service are calculated exactly as they are today.
Both transitions apply consistently to all participants. If you are approaching retirement, your years of service and earnings are calculated the same way they have always been.
At this time, nothing is changing for members who are already receiving their pension.
No. Your early retirement options remain as they are today.
No. Survivor benefits remain as they are today.
Yes. Appeals are heard through the Trustee Board using the Plan's formal appeals process. Section 8.05 of the current Pension Summary Plan Document and page 88 of the Health Plan Book, outline this process with more information.
Your Support Team and How to Reach Us
Effective January 1, 2027, all member and participant support will be provided by a dedicated team based in Edmonton, Alberta. For more than eighty years, the team in Grand Rapids, Michigan administered these Plans with professionalism, dedication, and genuine care. Those relationships have been real and deeply valued, and both teams are committed to working through this transition together with your care as the shared priority.
The Edmonton-based team will be available Monday–Friday, 7:00 AM–6:00 PM MST, providing real-time support from coast to coast, during the hours that work best for you.
Contact details for the new team will be sent to you in advance.
No. The contact details you have are the right ones to use today. When contact details change, you will receive that information directly and in advance. Nothing is changing right now in terms of how you reach us.
877.274.8796
Pension Inquiries - katie.henry@cebteam.org
Health Inquiries - laura.landstra@cebteam.org
Plan documents are available in the Resource Centre at christianeducationbenefitsolutions.org. They are also filed with the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) and publicly available.
Our team is here to support you, and we want to hear from you.
If you have any questions related to your Pension Plan or benefit, please connect with Katie at katie.henry@cebteam.org.
If you have any questions related to your Health Plan or benefits, please connect with Laura at laura.landstra@cebteam.org.
General questions about this transition can be directed to our Managing Director, at jbilodeau@cebsolutions.ca or our Manager of Mission Advancement and Growth, at snotenbomer@cebsolutions.ca.