Marnie: Hi, I'm Marnie Niemi Hood. 

Russell: And I'm Russell Evans. We're the hosts of Contributors, a podcast where we explore how Canadian employers are leading change, innovating industries and investing in our country's well-being and prosperity. 

Marnie: These organizations are prospering today by prioritizing more than just the bottom line and so are we. As leaders at the CAAT Pension Plan, we are contributors to one of Canada's fastest growing defined benefit pension plans. 

Russell: We believe in contributing today for a long term benefit. And we want to showcase other employers who are securing a better future for all Canadians. Follow along. 

Marnie: Today on Contributors, we're sitting down with the President and CEO of Lawyers Financial, Dawn Marchand. 

Russell: Dawn saw the opportunity of bringing financial wellness and retirement planning to the legal community. And she's going to share how that impacted her industry. 

Marnie: She'll share some staggering research and speak to why employers should consider providing a foundation for retirement planning and financial wellness to employees as soon as possible. Welcome to the show, Dawn. 

Dawn: Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. 

Marnie: It's great to see you. It's been a long time. 

Dawn: It has. It has. 

Russell: Now, where did the two of you know each other from? I'm not sure I know that. 

Dawn: So my organization, CBIA Lawyers Financial was looking for a pension solution for our employees. We were actually going to build our own. And we had set up a task force and we met with a number of the large pension plans in Canada, CAAT being one of them. And I don't know, we were sitting across the table from each other talking about pension plans and we just hit it off. It was just it was a kindred spirit right from the start. That's a couple of years ago now. Now that's how we know each other. And then I found out that Marnie lives very close to our office so whenever we meet, we meet in my office. So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun working with you. 

Marnie: Yeah, we definitely share an excitement about workplace based retirement plans. 

Dawn: For sure. 

Russell: Let's get into it. I guess the first question I would have would be what is Lawyers Financial? 

Dawn: So Lawyers Financial is actually the brand name of the Canadian Bar Insurance Association or CBIA. So I have to kind of tell you what CBIA is because they are interrelated. So CBIA started 40 years ago. In fact, our 40th anniversary of being federally chartered as a not for profit organization was in August of this year. So happy birthday to us. And what CBIA is or what we call CBIA Lawyers Financial? Is essentially an organization with the sole mandate of supporting the financial well-being of Canada's legal community? So we sponsor insurance and investment programs specifically designed for lawyers, their staff and their families. There are organizations like this for many professions including doctors, dentists, accountants, engineers. We are the organization for the legal community. 

Russell: Perfect. And how did you have the opportunity to become president and CEO there? 

Dawn: And then December of 2019, the opportunity came up where the organization needed a CEO. The CEO retired and the board appointed me president and CEO. I was quite surprised by it. I was quite happy doing marketing but I realized that there was a lot that could be done with the organization and so I jumped at the opportunity. But I have to say that becoming CEO three months before COVID hit has been challenging. It's been exciting but it's put a lot of things in perspective, the importance of leadership, empathy, resilience and always being prepared. 

Marnie: With that context having assumed the CEO position three months before COVID, I think your perspectives on the state of taking care of one's employees and preparing workplace arrangements for retirement, it might have been a different conversation pre-COVID and the situation we're in now. Do you have any comments about that? 

Dawn: Well, it just really has highlighted the need for people to be financially self-aware, to plan for the unexpected and to plan for the expected to plan for retirement. And I think it's made people stop and think about their own situation. A vast majority of us have spent less. I mean, who has to buy pants anymore? And you know, you're just not spending the same way. And so what are you going to do with that money? And then you start thinking, you know, I really want to live a full life. I don't want to sit in my house all the time. So I think we naturally think more of retirement or hopefully younger people. I mean, I'm thinking of retirement because I'm almost there. But the younger people, I think, are thinking, what do I have to do to prepare? So I think COVID has put that front and center and I think that's great. 

Marnie: So what do you think about the current state of workplace retirement planning in Canada in terms of what's available out there? 

Dawn: Well, so we did do an unofficial study if you will of law firms. First of all, law firms just don't have workplace retirement plans because quite often they're very small. I mean, there are the big six or seven law firms and at best they will have matching RRSP group RRSP programs. A law degree is probably one of the best educations you can get but they don't teach lawyers about financial planning, about financial readiness. And so lawyers will find themselves working many many hours paying off debt, working so many hours, trying to make partner making partner. And then they get to retirement and they're not prepared. I do know from my previous experience that many organizations now we're just talking general organizations not law firms do offer group RRSPs. And many of those will have matching contribution rates. What I find most disturbing is how many employees don't take advantage of that matching rate. I have some numbers back from both Manulife and Sun life. It's free money. Survey that was conducted a number of years ago but I don't think the numbers have changed by Sun Life is that they found in their group of organizations that they did benefits for 84 percent of their firms employer clients did offer a group RRSP but less than half of all eligible employees participated. So they're passing up on free employer contributions were thousands of dollars. And when they asked why, why did they pass up on this? There were three main reasons. The first one was 21 percent said they just didn't have a desire to do so. I don't even know what that means. I don't understand it. Why are you passing free money? 14 percent said they didn't have money to spare and that's understandable because people. We all tend to spend what we make. But you know what, we have to understand what we have to educate employees and ourselves about is that contributions provide a tax deferral. So you're saving money and then your investments grow, so you're making money. So you really have to budget it in. And then finally, six percent. My favorite reason of all is that they prefer to invest on their own. You can beat a professional money manager rate of return. And if you match what your employer is getting that means you're getting 100 percent return on your investment day one. So it scares me, scares me. 

Russell: This kind of leads into another question, which is what do you see as the responsibility of employers in terms of making options available and also kind of providing counsel? 

Dawn: Employers have a responsibility to try and contribute to their employees' financial well-being. They do it by providing them with a salary, that's fair. But it goes beyond that. It's important that employers do it more so than ever because the war for talent is more significant than ever before. People are coming into the- I see it. You know, I'm a boomer. I'm a late stage boomer, but that's not who we're hiring. You know, we're hiring the young people. They're not as focused on salary as they are on what are the other benefits that are provided. They specifically ask about retirement benefits. They ask about health benefits. They ask about culture, about time off. When I was getting a job, it was, OK, what are you paying me? OK, is that fair? All right, let's go. But today's employees are asking for more and I applaud them for doing so. The other reason why employers really need to focus on retirement programs is that people aren't retiring because they don't know that they can or they simply can't. And so what you're losing is that mid-level your high performers who don't see a progression plan for themselves and will go someplace else where they do or will start their own organization. And so you're losing the best talent that you have because you can't offer them growth. There was a study done in the states by Willis Towers Watson back in 17. So not that long ago. And it found that the majority of American workers say that they are willing to pay more for better employer provided retirement benefits and 61 percent would give up pay to have a guaranteed retirement benefit. And I think the same is probably true here in Canada. People want that, employees want that and to be fair to employers, till now, it's been difficult to set up a true predictable guaranteed pension plan. I mean, until DBPlus which I mean, I am your I am your number one spokesperson out in the world. 

Russell: I love what you said. They're done and I want to build on that just to say, I think in many ways we would say that, you know, great benefits like like a DB pension like DBplus is what's best for workers. But I think actually the point you made there is is very astute which is it's what's best for employers as well. Our CEO Derek Dobson recently wrote an Op-Ed on LinkedIn called Recruiting and Retaining Talent in the Changing World and effectively he talked about the war for talent or the race for talent or whatever you want to call it. And the idea that this is one of the ways in which you can truly kind of protect your best people and recruit even more which is investing in their long term wellness and well-being, especially something like a retirement income program says we're not investing in you short term, we're investing in the rest of your career. And I think that metaphorically really reaches employees because it says you're not just saying you're investing in me for life, you're actually doing it. 

Dawn: So true. I had one law firm that joined early on to DBplus and literally a week later they had a posting on LinkedIn. And the posting basically said, we need lawyers. We have a defined benefit pension plan. That was it. 

Russell: Perfect, just just for our listeners quickly, can you just answer the question? What is DBplus Dawn? 

Dawn: DBplus is a defined benefit pension plan for basically all Canadians that provides sustainable, predictable income for life. So when I talk to law firms about it, it's a it's a turnkey solution for four organizations because CAAT who runs DBplus does everything, does all the work, does all the member, communication member education, all the administration, all the investing. So as a member, you don't have any investment decisions to make. Quite simply, you make a contribution that is matched by your employer. You set it and forget it. You can buy additional pension. You can go online right now, do a calculator with a few key points. See what your pension is going to be when you retire. It's simply spectacular. 

Marnie: And it's that easy Dawn in terms of finding information about the plan. Your website is great. 

Dawn: Yeah, and we link back and forth to the DBplus website with the calculator. When I do webinars about this all the time to law firms, so we go out to lawyers and we do a webinar and I have I always have over 100 people at every webinar. The interest is so high. And I have to start the webinar with two pieces of information. I have to tell them that I apologize in advance because I'm going to sound like an infomercial. That this plan is so good that you're going to think but I'm not trying to sell this to you because I don't have to. I'm just telling you about the plan, but it is going to sound like you're going to get a set of steak knives if you join up because it's just so good. And the second thing I tell them and this is really important, especially for lawyers to know because they tend to be pretty cynical group and I don't mind that being recorded because they are. And that is is that the CBIA, our organization does not make a single penny from this plan. Our normal business, our base business is providing insurance and investment products to lawyers. And we do take a piece of that in order to keep the lights on to pay for salaries. But DBplus is a not for profit. Run by CAAT, not for profit. There are no fees. There is absolutely zero fees but our board of directors who are lawyers from across Canada truly saw this as something we needed to do for the legal community. So in fact, we're investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to educate law firms about the plan, to promote it both in time and in money. And when I tell lawyers that, you know, they realize, OK, then tell me what this is about because obviously you think this is important. It truly is an altruistic venture on the part of our board of directors and I couldn't be more proud than to work for an organization that says, go out and do this. 

Russell: So, Marnie, I've heard a lot about Dawn, but today was actually the first opportunity that I got to speak with her. She's fantastic such an advocate for CAAT Pension Plan. She understands the altruistic nature of what we're trying to do here, which is really to provide as many Canadians as we can with lifetime retirement income. 

Marnie: And from an employer's perspective, Dawn makes it clear there's a need for education and the need to demystify some of the facts around retirement planning and financial wellness. A lot of what we try to do at CAAT for our members and employers is look at our pension plan and say, how can we make this as simple as possible, understanding that people have other priorities? 

Russell: Exactly. It's our role to take care of pensions but it's also our role to make it as simple as possible for our members and employers to understand what's happening with that money and to make sure that they feel confident that the funds will be there when they need them. 

Marnie: You were mentioning a great study that Willis Towers Watson commissioned in terms of how many workers were prepared to give up pay to have a guaranteed retirement benefit. And I know that you're a marketing whiz, Dawn. Are you having challenge making the connection between what people say they want a guaranteed retirement benefit with understanding that this is that a DB plan is what provides that. And that they can afford it, that it's not out of reach for mere mortals like all of us. 

Dawn: It's a great point Marnie, and I have to say when I started this process with DBplus, I was surprised that I have DB envy. Now I am a boomer and both my parents. My mother was a teacher. My dad was a federal government employee. They had defined benefit plans. They knew that they were set for life. That money would be coming in the door every every month. And I wanted that and I didn't have that. I had the best. I had was a DC plan but I realized I still had to decumulated myself. I had to pick my own investments from a list. I knew that that was not the same. At the end of at the end of retirement, I would have a bucket of money and hopefully the stock market wouldn't crash the next day. But what I'm finding is that DB plans have not been around for enough time, that it's out of the psyche of these employees. And they don't value, they don't understand the value of a defined benefit pension plan and that guaranteed investment for life. I don't start talking about DB plus. I have to go through an education mini education session about group of RRSPs and DBs. I have to actually generate interest in defined benefit plans which I find astounding because I mean, I'm just so bought in. So that's been the biggest challenge is getting these younger employees to really understand what a DB plan has been because they haven't seen one for so many, so many years. 

Marnie: So how can organizations better support their employees to build for a solid financial future? 

Dawn: I've worked in very large organizations. Manulife and Sun Life are great, great companies. And I was offered all kinds of courses on a regular basis. Time management. Leadership. Why aren't they offering courses on financial well-being? Budget management, you know, just things that will fully round out your employee that show that you are invested in everything about them. There there's so many courses out there that are just ready to be picked up and and done. I really think that employers should show a real interest in their employees well-being, their educational financial well-being. But, you know, employees and just Canadians, we have a responsibility to look at our own financial status. Look at where we're at. Look at our debt levels. Look at our future plans. There's so many blogs, so many podcasts and talk to people. Money is taboo because I have actually started talking to my friends about it and this is about retirement. I started saying, so how much do you think you need, you're going to need when you retire? Like is a million enough five hundred thousand? How much a year are you planning to spend when you retire? And I just wanted to hear what other people's perspectives where I had my own ideas. And I said, I'll tell you what I'm thinking and then we would talk about it and my perspectives would change because I respected these people. And it really started, you know, asking more questions. So you talk about these things with with your fellow employees and employers start offering these half day two hour online programs about finances. 

Russell: When I first became aware of Lawyers Financial, Dawn and your mandate, I did have a moment where I thought to myself, this seems a little funny. So providing advice around kind of finances to lawyers, but our lawyers got it all figured out, right? Like they're, you know, making money hand over fist, right? It doesn't seem like they should need this this help, right? Like isn't that a little bit like providing lawyers with assertiveness training? What can you tell us about that? 

Dawn: That's totally the brand of lawyers but that's not the case. The average Canadian law student graduates with more than $80,000 in student debt. And then they need to find a job. And there are only so many large firms and many are forced into solo practitioner practitioner status just because there aren't as many jobs in big law firms. And as I said earlier, they're not given a financial education. It's a law education. A legal education. One of the best. But they are not financial planners, so they're very smart people but they don't know about financial planning. And lawyers, being smart, being assertive often won't ask for the help. But they're so busy paying off debt. Then the next stage is starting a family, working on their career, working all those hours and they find actually lawyers retire much later than other professions. Some lawyers will tell you it's because they love what they do but I think it's because they can't afford it. I think they were so so hard and they and spend so hard, then they become partner which costs you money, you just keep working. So they're like everyone else. 

Russell: Lawyers Financial had a tweet last week that I really liked. And it quoted as saying, and the saying was most lawyers live well, work hard and die poor. And I wonder if that's something that you think about in your role. 

Dawn: There's no question. You know, our whole mandate is to be the trusted provider of choice for insurance and financial solutions. Our goal is to help the legal community both build and protect wealth. It's not a given that you become a lawyer and you become wealthy. What is a given is you become a lawyer and you're going to have a staggering amount of debt to start with. And our goal is to help them both build wealth and protect it because they have such a clear life stages. It's one thing about lawyers. They have very clear life stages. They have school. Then they're called to the bar and they got it and they've got this debt overhang them. And then, as I say, they have the early career long hours mid-career starting a family. Are they sole practitioner, their corporate counsel and then late stage making partner. They have new stress demands. They have to be a rainmaker. That's when they they might start thinking about retirement planning. But you know, the average age of retirement back in 2010 for lawyers was seventy five years old. They're a different group of people. 

Marnie: Yeah. And what we know about planning for retirement is the earlier you start, the bigger your pension is going to be. And if you can offer a workplace, wide arrangement that is a set it and forget it. First day of hire, you sign up and you're participating throughout your career, you'll actually have an adequate income in retirement. You'll be able to afford to retire when you're ready to retire. I've talked to people who have a pot of money that through their workplace group RRSP they've saved. And I will never forget talking to a woman who was 60 and we were talking about what joining DBplus would look like for her. And she was very proud to show me she had $80,000 in the company sponsored savings account. And I said, Oh, OK, so that's two years two years pay in the bank that you have. And I could see for her that the shoe dropped in that moment because she clearly had no idea how she was going to live, maybe for 30 or 40 years on that two years worth of pay that she had in the bank. 

Dawn: You know, that speaks to something that we really believe in that CBIA and that and that we're putting our our money behind and that is having a financial plan. So I believe in diversifying diversifying when when you're investing in stocks and diversifying your your income, if you can and diversifying your retirement plan. So a pension plan is one component of a retirement plan but there may be others. You may have RRSP, you may have savings, you have your, your house, your residence and you may have, if you're lucky enough, a defined benefit plan. It's never too late. You said that you want to invest early and what you have to do is you have to have the courage to step back and really look at what your financial situation is. You think, you know, you kind of get your statements and you think you know what your your your position is. But until you really stop and look at it, you don't. And if you don't know where you are then you can't know where you're going. 

Russell: So, Dawn, I'm curious from your perspective, you've obviously done a lot of the foundational work to help educate some of your, your firms and lawyers on financial planning. You've put a lot of programs in place. You've got various solutions in place, including CAATs DBplus, what kind of feedback have you received on that? 

Dawn: Well, it has all been very very positive. A lot of gratitude for people saying thank you for pulling, you know, for for providing this to us, for letting us know about it. A lot of relief when they when they do a financial plan. I mean, we do financial plans for some pretty wealthy lawyers who have a significant amount of dollars sitting in cash because they just don't know what to do with it and giving them a plan of where and the and the places of where they can put that money so that it's working for them. We've had nothing but positive feedback on DBplus. And our financial planning, we basically really started it over the last, I'd say, over the last year and are really seeing people understand better what their options are. They, you know, at the end, they choose what they want to do with their moneybut they realize that they have options to see it grow or to protect it. 

Russell: If we were to grade ourselves on the global stage, what what grade would you give Canada in terms of focusing on that? What could we do better? Are there other countries that you think we should be looking to as a role model around putting these programs in place? 

Dawn: It's a great question, Russell. I'm not going to pretend to know what other countries enough to about what other countries are doing to be able to. To give a specific grade, I will say that I am biased, I think Canada is the best country in the world. Is there more we can be doing? Definitely. But it's a privilege to live and work here. I do see us as risk takers. I don't think we're not first to market on things but I believe we are early adopters of things that work. And I think we've got a really good financial system. I mean, if you remember back in the crash, everyone lauded all the states, everyone lauded a lot our banking system. I think it's strong. I think it's secure. I think with organizations, quite honestly, with organizations like CAAT who are saying, you know, we were started to provide pensions for X Group but we really believe in retirement readiness for all Canadians. So we are going to open this up to all Canadians. Wow. I was looking at building our own pension plan. It was going to take me five years and millions of dollars and that wasn't necessary. I was looking to CAAT to say, what does your pension plan look like so I can kind of emulate it? And they said, Well, you know what, we're actually going to open it up to all Canadians. So, you know, wow, let's take advantage of organizations that are willing to go beyond their own borders, their own markets and really do something great for Canadians. 

Russell: I think I would credit a number of people at CAAT for that, including Marnie and including our CEO Derek Dobson. And something that I've heard Marni say before. You were talking earlier about pension envy. And I've heard Marni say, you know, we need to move from pension envy to pension possibilities. So rather than feeling unhappy that they don't have access to a DB pension, moving to a point where they realize, well, I can. And finding ways to make that available which is exactly what you've done for Lawyers Financial. 

Dawn: Exactly. You're you're a marketer too Marnie. 

Marnie: Well, I'm learning a lot from you, Dawn. You know, certainly one of the things I wanted to to probe with you is what do you see as the future in Canada? What do you see as a as as within the realm of possibilities? 

Dawn: Great question. I see more employee choice. So it used to be, you know, when I started at a new a new place of work, you spent the first half of the day learning about the benefit plans and picking what you you know, is this a family or an individual? Did you want 80 percent dental coverage or 100 percent dental coverage? What if I don't want any dental coverage? What if I want all physiotherapy? You know, not so I'm not asking that companies open up their wallets too much, but open up the choice. So and we're seeing that on the health side, much more than on the financial side. Where we're further ahead, I believe as a country on the health benefits are becoming much more alacarte. We're looking at what the new generation really wants for themselves to feel healthy. On the financial side, I would love to see, you know, maybe early career lawyers don't need a matching RRSP. Maybe they need a matching debt repayment program so that employers really invest in you. I know you're coming in with this debt. I know you're not going to be able to pay it off, you know, quickly on your own. So instead of putting it into, we want you to, you know, invest as well, but you have some time. So let's first get that debt pay down with what a benefit that would be. So I think choice more a la carte options more options, more education, more as I said in work learning about life skills as well as time management are all things that are, I think, fairly easy to do. And we just need a couple of big organizations to do it and others will follow suit. 

Russell: And what sort of advice Dawn would you offer to the next CEO of Lawyers Financial or leaders of other professional associations? 

Dawn: It's flexibility. Being flexible listening to your employees. I always say fair does not mean equal. What's good for one is not necessarily good for another. You have to put client needs first. Everyone has to agree on that. Client needs, whoever your clients are, their needs are first. Very soon after that the employee needs and the employer needs have to be considered as well. Upcoming CEOs, leaders of organizations need to be resilient, need to lead with empathy, need to be flexible while still always focusing on the customer. If you put the customer first enough, employees put the customer first and then you can make all of these other things work, then why not. 

Russell: Dawn is a big thinker. One of her ideas I found so inspiring and something I never would have thought about was the idea of offering an employee benefit that provides some sort of accelerated repayment of your student loans. I think that's absolutely genius and I think that's the kind of thing that you really need to make available, especially young workers just coming out of school, because that has to be their first priority. You need to pay off your credit cards before you can even start thinking about planning ahead to your retirement. 

Marnie: Yeah, great point. I also appreciated how she admitted to the fact that she had defined benefit pension envy and how she'd grown up in a household with her mother being a teacher and her father being a federal public servant. You know, she knows what they had and how that really helped them. 

Russell: Very true. And that resonated for me as well. My mom is now retired but she was a HOOPP member. And my parents friends used to say growing up that they thought it was unfair that both my parents had government pensions. And my mom's perspective on that at the time was, Hey, everyone deserves this. I want you to have this too. And she was always advocating for it but at the time, there was no way to make it available. And that's one of the reasons I'm so proud to work at CAAT today because we're finally in the position where we have a solution to make this happen. You know, back in the 1980s, there was no way to change the status quo, whereas today there's so many ways that we can offer that kind of gold tier public pension to workers across the public and private sector. 

Marnie: You're so right, Russell. Predictable retirement income with conditional inflation protection is now available to the private sector. Providing this to private sector workers across the country at affordable rates would have been unimaginable even five years ago. Dawn and her board recognized that a secure retirement income was important as a member driven organization serving Canada's legal community. And that while they could build something themselves, it would, she said, take five years and millions of dollars to do it. And then she'd have to work to build credibility for lawyers to even consider it. 

Russell: Good point, Marnie. Let's jump into the final moments of today's episode. Dawn goes beyond financial wellness and retirement planning to share a really worthwhile initiative The Canadian Bar Association, sponsored by the CBIA. 

Marnie: Clearly, the programs that you're offering your own financial wellness and retirement planning are very popular and needed by your membership. Do you have any other initiatives on the go right now where the CBIA in its umbrella organization, the CBA, are making a difference in the lives of Canadians? 

Dawn: The CBA, which is the Canadian Bar Association, we were originally started as an insurance committee of the CBA back in like the 1950s or 60s. We are federally chartered, as I said earlier in 1981 as a standalone, not for profit organization, but we are we have a very close relationship with the CBA. As you can imagine, they represent lawyers across the country and they have a program that we have really taken a liking to. We sponsor it, we fund it. And that's the truth and reconciliation program through the CBA. Brad Regehr is the immediate past president of the national organization CBA. He is the first indigenous president of the CBA. And this was his mandate to help lawyers on their journey of truth and reconciliation. I think that this is something that is helping all Canadians and there are other truth and reconciliation programs and resources available. I just happen to know that CBA has an amazing set of resources and I also happen to know you don't have to be a lawyer to access them. You just have to know that they're there. 

Marnie: Thanks for that. Good on you, the CBIA and the CBA for promoting that. The legal community Canada's, their role within Canada's justice system is very uniquely positioned to really move the dial on this issue across Canada. So kudos. Kudos to you for that. 

Dawn: Very true. Thank you. 

Marnie: Thanks for joining us today. If you're on Twitter, follow us @ContributorsCA for updates and news. 

Russell: You can also visit contributorspodcast.ca for all of our back episodes, blogs and more. Our next episode goes live December 1st. We'll see you then.