A group of 39 police officers in Ontario are suing their pension managers and current and former employers, claiming they were denied their full retirement benefits when they started new jobs with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).

The officers claim the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) failed to transfer their full pension value to the Public Sector Pension Plan (PSPP) when they moved from municipal law enforcement to the provincial police service. They’re seeking $3 million each through legal action launched in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Barrie.

The lawsuit filed in August follows similar allegations filed by six OPP officers in May. A lawyer representing the officers said the alleged pension violations are widespread and that there are more legal claims to come. 

The officers are suing OMERS and the Ontario Pension Board, which manages the Public Service Pension Plan (PSPP). The financial institutions that serve as custodians for OMERS and PSPP are also named in the suit, along with 13 municipal police services, including in Toronto, Hamilton, Barrie, Thunder Bay and Windsor.

The plaintiffs claim they lost retirement money owed to them when they changed jobs from municipal police forces to the OPP. The move required them to transfer their pensions from OMERS to PSPP, which manages retirement funds for the provincial police. The officers allege the value of their OMERS pensions exceeded the amount that PSPP lets them transfer, a limit that’s set by the Income Tax Act. 

The officers say they should have been given a choice between receiving a lump-sum payout or transferring the excess pension value into a locked-in retirement account, which a financial institution would hold and invest until they retired. They claim they were denied that choice, leaving them without the additional benefits to which they were entitled.

They claim that OMERS and PSPP administrators breached contract, fiduciary duties and pension-plan rules by denying them their full pensions. 

Spokespeople for OMERS and OPB said the claims have no merit. 

Don Peat at OMERS said the pension has notified the officers’ lawyers of its position and that it plans to “vigorously defend” the claims against it. “OMERS is committed to fulfilling our obligations to our members and provides all options to members when they terminate employment and change jobs in accordance with legislative requirements,” said Peat. 

OPB spokesperson Michael Lockhart said the fund manager has also told the plaintiffs’ lawyers it objects to their claims. “We are confident that the proper process was followed in the transfer of these pensions to PSPP,” he said.  

The OPP declined to comment. “As this matter is before the courts, we are not in a position to provide further information,” said spokesperson Bill Dickson.

The defendants have not filed responses to the allegations and none of the claims have been tested in court. 

Sherilyn Pickering, a lawyer at Kahler Law representing the OPP officers, said her firm has heard from more than 100 police officers with similar complaints about their pension transfers. “We’re being contacted by officers almost daily about this issue,” she said, adding that the firm is preparing to file a claim on behalf of another large group of officers. 

The lawsuits follow a years-long recruitment push by the OPP. In August 2020, Ontario’s government announced $25 million in funding to hire 200 new OPP officers, part of a broader effort to address staffing shortages and follow recommendations from an independent review panel on workplace culture. The plaintiffs in the current lawsuit all joined the OPP between 2022 and 2024, leaving municipal jobs for provincial roles during the agency’s hiring spree.

The timing of the suit is sensitive for OMERS, which manages over $140 billion in assets on behalf of 640,000 working and retired municipal employees. The Ontario government launched a governance review of the organization last year, the first in more than a decade, after members raised concerns about transparency and communication. 

The review is examining OMERS’s dual-board structure—the Sponsors Corporation Board, which sets contribution rates and plan design, and the Administration Corporation Board, which manages investments and operations. Employer groups and member associations have criticized OMERS’s governance as opaque, especially after contribution rates for those earning more than $90,000—about 30 per cent of members, including many police officers and firefighters—were set to rise in 2027.