Pension Satellite Account, 2022
Released: 2023-12-13
Data on the Pension Satellite Account (PSA) are now available for 2022. These data tables will no longer be produced by Statistics Canada, as some data contained within this account are freely available from other sources, while other data elements required significant resources to address data gaps for reporting purposes. Statistics Canada is focusing on the social insurance pension schemes table published by the OECD, which contains information similar to that contained in the PSA. Data from this Annual National Accounts table can be found on the web page. Data can be found in other Statistics Canada sources including the National Balance Sheet Accounts, Financial Flow Accounts and the Current and capital accounts.
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Note to readers
The Pension Satellite Account (PSA) provides an integrated stock-flow representation of the Canadian pension system. The PSA fully articulates the wealth positions (level of assets) as well as the pension inflows (contributions, investment income), outflows (withdrawals), and realized and unrealized gains and losses that contribute to change in wealth (revaluations and other changes in assets).
The PSA presents annual estimates for each of the three tiers of the Canadian pension system: social security, employer-based pension plans, and voluntary individual registered savings plans. The institutional dimension of the PSA presentation has been mainly defined by data availability. The breakdown of the three tiers into further detail is provided where data supported it and reflects a mixture of detail by program and by institutional dimension.
In the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts, net claims on pension fund managers, imputed contributions and imputed investment income are evaluated for trusteed pension plans.
Trusteed pension plans include both the claims on pension fund managers by pension funds (asset of trusteed pension plans) for funds that are underfunded and the claims on pension funds by pension fund managers (liability of trusteed pension plans) for funds that are overfunded. Together, this asset and liability results in a net claim on pension fund managers as part of the trusteed pension plans net assets. These net claims may be overall positive if plans are underfunded or overall negative if they are overfunded.
Imputed contributions are residually derived as the accrual of pension entitlements due to employment in the current period plus the costs of operating the scheme minus all actual contributions in the period. Positive imputed contributions occur when, for example, a contribution holiday results in actual contributions being insufficient to cover the current periods accrued pension entitlements plus operating costs. Alternatively, negative imputed contributions indicate that actual contributions were higher than the accrued pension entitlements plus operating costs. This might occur when special contributions were made to help reduce the underfunded status of a plan.
Imputed investment income is calculated on the underfunded or overfunded amount of the trusteed pension plan. If the trusteed pension plans are underfunded, a positive imputed investment income is evaluated to represent the investment income that could have been earned if the trusteed pension plan was fully funded. Alternatively, if the plans are overfunded, a negative imputed investment income is estimated to offset the portion of the actual investment income that was generated on surplus assets.
For this release, the PSA was revised from 1990 to 2021 to incorporate the most up-to-date data from the National Balance Sheet Accounts.
Products
The data visualization product "Pension satellite account: Interactive tool," which is part of Statistics Canada – Data Visualization Products (71-607-X), is now available.
The Economic accounts statistics portal, accessible from the Subjects module of the Statistics Canada website, features an up-to-date portrait of national and provincial economies and their structure.
Further tables, accessible from the Data module of the Statistics Canada website, feature an up-to-date portrait of all sectors of the Canadian economy, including pensions.
National Balance Sheet Accounts (table 36-10-0580-01).
Financial Flow Accounts (table 36-10-0578-01).
Current and capital accounts (table 36-10-0112-01).
Revenue, expenditure and budgetary balance - General governments (table 36-10-0477-01).
The Latest Developments in the Canadian Economic Accounts (13-605-X) is available.
An overview of the scope and structure of the Pension Satellite Account and a description of the sources and methods used to derive its stock and flow estimates are available in the Guide to the Canadian Pension Satellite Account (13-599-X).
The User Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-606-G) is available.
The Methodological Guide: Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (13-607-X) is available.
Contact information
For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact us (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).
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