employment pension plan membership

contributor to a spousal RRSP [ contributor to a spousal registered retirement savings plan | spousal registered retirement savings plan contributor | spousal RRSP contributor | spousal contributor ]

unused RRSP contribution room [ unused registered retirement savings plans contribution room | unused contribution room ]

employer's contribution

employer contribution

compulsory employers' actual social contributions

fixed benefit-fixed contribution plan

defined contribution plan | money purchase plan

employer's social contributions | employer contribution

employer's contribution reserve with waiver of use

(vi) an eligible contribution is a contribution that is paid by an employer in respect of a defined benefit provision of a pension plan where it is an eligible contribution under subsection 147.2(2) of the Act or, in the case of a plan in which Her Majesty in right of Canada or a province is a participating employer, would be an eligible contribution under subsection 147.2(2) of the Act if all amounts held to the credit of the plan in the accounts of Canada or the province were excluded from the assets of the plan, and

(6) Where an employer or individual makes payments to a trade union or an association of employers (in this subsection referred to as the “contributing entity”) to enable the contributing entity to make contributions to a pension plan, such portion of a contribution made by the contributing entity to the plan as is reasonably attributable to a payment made to the contributing entity by an employer or individual shall, for the purposes of the conditions in this Part, be considered to be a contribution made by the employer or individual, as the case may be, and not by the contributing entity.

I would think that the employees certainly made contributions to the plan—now that was a shared contribution between the employer and the employee, but certainly they made contributions—and surely with any plan there is some risk.

Right now, only 38.8% of Canadians have access to a workplace pension plan, less than a third have access to a defined benefit plan and only 17.4% of employees in the private sector have such a plan.