Auditor refuses to back down in $10.7B pension feud
(The Star Food)

Ontario’s legislative watchdog is escalating a $10.7 billion standoff with the provincial government over taxpayer-funded pension surpluses.Auditor general Bonnie Lysyk insisted Thursday the co-sponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan shouldn’t be booked as assets because the government does not have ready access to the funds.And Lysyk is demanding proof “in writing” from the unions that they are okay with the government booking the surpluses a public asset for accounting purposes.“Show me the letter that says you can use that pension money with permission – with an agreement,” the auditor told reporters at Queen’s Park.There has been no suggestion the government intends to dip into the pension funds, which would be illegal. The question is whether the pension surplus can be counted as an asset or not at all.The accounting dispute is worth $1.5 billion to the province’s bottom line this year and could be the difference between Premier Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals balancing the books or remaining in deficit.On Monday, a panel of accounting experts – led by Tricia O’Malley, chair of the Canadian Actuarial Standards Oversight Council – concluded the funds are indeed a public asset.But Lysyk, who blindsided the provincial government in September by reversing her position on surpluses that had signed off on by her and her predecessors for the previous 14 years, was defiant.“This isn’t about me,” she said.“It is not my money. That money is for the benefit of employees and retirees … so it’s not my pension. It’s not my budget deficit.”On Monday, O’Malley said the conflict was “a difference of a professional opinion between the professional accounting staff of government and the staff at the office of the auditor general on how the surpluses ...