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TORONTO, June 16, 2020 – OPTrust Select has welcomed 38 organizations and over 1,000 members have joined the defined benefit pension offering from OPTrust since enrollment began in early 2019. OPTrust Select is designed specifically for organizations in the nonprofit, charitable and broader public sectors in Ontario and brings the advantages of OPTrust’s large scale and investment expertise to organizations that did not previously offer a defined benefit pension. The people who have joined OPTrust Select provide a range of critically important services including healthcare, community support and environmental advocacy.

“Nonprofit workers are essential to the wellbeing of our province, which means that their wellbeing is essential too,” said OPTrust President and CEO, Peter Lindley. “The need for security and predictability has never been greater, and by joining OPTrust Select, the vast majority of these workers will have access to the income security of a defined benefit pension for the first time.”

Some of the most recent workplaces to join the Plan employ workers who are represented by OPSEU, making these the first OPSEU members of OPTrust Select. An additional fifty organizations from across Ontario are in the process of applying to join and organizations have continued to apply throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This isn’t just a victory for the new members of OPTrust Select, it’s a victory for nearly a million workers across Ontario who don’t yet have the security of a defined benefit pension plan, including 25,000 OPSEU members working in the broader public service,” said OPSEU President, Warren (Smokey) Thomas. “When OPSEU first proposed this idea more than a decade ago, it was because we believed then, as we do now that all workers deserve to have access to a secure and dignified retirement, and OPTrust Select is making that a reality.”

OPTrust Select is the recommended pension plan of choice for the Ontario Nonprofit Network (ONN), the independent network of the nearly 58,000 organizations and one million nonprofit workers in Ontario. Further details on OPTrust Select can be found at optrustselect.com.

"Nonprofit workers are committed to serving their communities, and a pension plan is a way for organizations to commit to decent work practices for the long term,” said ONN Executive Director, Cathy Taylor. “A defined benefit plan like OPTrust Select provides stable income for life after retirement. We are thrilled that so many nonprofits have joined OPTrust Select, and we continue to hear from more interested organizations every day."

A full list of OPTrust Select employers can be found here.

 

 

ABOUT OPTRUST

With net assets of almost $22 billion, OPTrust invests and manages one of Canada's largest pension funds and administers the OPSEU Pension Plan (including OPTrust Select), a defined benefit plan with over 96,000 members. OPTrust was established to give plan members and the Government of Ontario an equal voice in the administration of the Plan and the investment of its assets through joint trusteeship. OPTrust is governed by a 10-member Board of Trustees, five of whom are appointed by OPSEU and five by the Government of Ontario.

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MEDIA CONTACT
Claire Prashaw
OPTrust
Director, Public Affairs
1- 416-681-3617
cprashaw@optrust.com