The federal government has moved about $2.8 billion from the Public Service Pension Fund into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, which is Ottawa’s main government account. About $1.9 billion was moved after a 2024 decision. Another $900 million was transferred in December 2025.

Let’s be clear about what happened. Ottawa took money from a workers’ pension fund and put it into its own account. Workers have paid enough. They have given enough. Their pension money should not be Ottawa’s spare cash.

The law may allow this, but that does not make it fair.

A pension is part of a worker’s pay. Workers earn it over many years on the job. It is actually their deferred wages put into a pension plan. A pension plan that helps people retire with some security and dignity. The employer’s pension contribution is not a handout. It is part of the full pay package workers earn through their work.

When a pension plan has more money than it needs at the time, that extra money should stay in the plan. It can help protect pensions if markets fall. It can improve benefits. It can reduce the amount workers have to pay into the plan. Plan surpluses should go to improve benifits and not be taken by the employer, in this case the federal government to use as it wishes.

Federal rules say a pension surplus becomes “non-permitted” when the plan has assets worth more than 125 percent of what it needs to cover its obligations. At that point, Ottawa can move the extra money into general government revenue. Remember when public plans are in deficit: who gets the blame? The workers for having a pension plan themselves, so this needs to change, and workers’ pension funds need to be better protected. Folks in Ottawa had another choice. It could have reduced pension contributions for workers. Instead, it chose the option that helped the government’s own finances.

That is the real problem.

The law should be changed so pension money stays protected. Any surplus should remain in the pension plan and be used only to help the workers and retirees who built it.

This is not the first time Ottawa has treated workers’ money as a source of government cash.

Employment Insurance premiums paid by workers and employers once built up a huge surplus. The Auditor General reported that the EI account had more than $36 billion by March 2001. That surplus helped improve the federal government’s financial position. In later debates, the amount discussed reached about $54 billion.

EI and pension funds are not exactly the same. They are governed by different laws. But the pattern is familiar. When workers’ money builds up, governments start looking at it as money they can use.

At the same time, corporations receive tax breaks, public subsidies, and special deals. Wealthy interests often have more access to government than ordinary workers and their unions do. But when Ottawa wants to cut costs, balance the books, or find money for new spending, it tells workers to accept less.

Workers did not cause the affordability crisis. They did not create the housing shortage. They did not cause the growing gap between the rich and everyone else.

Still, workers’ wages, public services, EI benefits, and retirement security are often the first things governments question, cut, or weaken.

Enough is enough.

Ottawa should put the $2.8 billion back into the Public Service Pension Fund. It should change the law so future pension surpluses protect benefits, lower contributions, and strengthen retirement security.

Workers have paid enough. They have given enough. Their pension money should not be Ottawa’s spare cash.