What is the difference between a Group RRSP and a DPSP?

A Group RRSP accepts employee and employer contributions, and the employee can generally withdraw at any time — including your matching dollars, which defeats the retention purpose. A DPSP takes employer contributions only and can impose a vesting period, so the money is genuinely tied to staying. The common structure pairs them: employees contribute to the RRSP, the employer matches into the DPSP.

Only a fraction of our employees participate. What fixes that?

Almost always education and defaults rather than a richer match. Participation rises sharply with a well-designed default investment option, a match structured to require an employee contribution, and an enrolment session run in plain language by someone who will answer follow-up questions. We run those sessions ourselves rather than sending a fund brochure.

What are the CAP Guidelines and do they apply to us?

The Guidelines for Capital Accumulation Plans set out what sponsors of member-directed plans — including Group RRSPs and DPSPs — are expected to do around plan selection, investment options, member education and ongoing review. They are guidelines rather than statute, but they are the benchmark against which a sponsor’s conduct is measured. Most small employers have never been shown them; documenting your governance against them is straightforward and worth doing.

Solutions

Group Retirement & Savings

A retirement programme is the one benefit that compounds — for your employees and for your ability to keep them. It is also the one most often set up once and never looked at again.

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What it actually is

Group RRSP, DPSP, TFSA and pension — coordinated with the benefits plan.

Most Canadian employers use a Group RRSP, often paired with a Deferred Profit Sharing Plan so employer contributions vest and are not immediately withdrawable. A Group TFSA can sit alongside for shorter-horizon saving. Registered pension plans offer stronger locking-in but more regulation. The right structure depends on what you are actually trying to achieve — retention, tax efficiency, or a genuine retirement outcome.

What you get: A benefit employees can watch grow — and stay for.

Coverage

What sits inside this benefit

Each of these is a decision, not a default. Most plans inherit them from a template and never revisit them.

Group RRSP

The workhorse. Employee contributions by payroll deduction with immediate tax relief, and employer matching. Simple to administer, but employer contributions can generally be withdrawn by the employee at will, which undercuts retention.

Deferred Profit Sharing Plan (DPSP)

Employer-only contributions with a vesting period, which solves the withdrawal problem a Group RRSP has. Commonly paired with a Group RRSP: employees contribute to the RRSP, the employer matches into the DPSP.

Group TFSA

After-tax contributions, tax-free growth and withdrawals. Useful for lower-income employees for whom an RRSP deduction is worth less, and for shorter-horizon goals.

Registered pension plan

Defined contribution or, rarely now, defined benefit. Stronger locking-in and stronger retirement outcomes, with materially more governance and regulatory obligation.

Where the money moves

The levers we actually pull

Benchmark the investment management fees. A difference of half a percent compounds into a very large number over a career, and it is negotiable at surprisingly modest asset levels.
Review the fund menu: too few options is a governance risk, too many measurably reduces participation. A well-built target-date default does most of the work.
Structure matching to encourage participation — a match that requires an employee contribution changes behaviour in a way a flat contribution does not.
Document your governance against the CAP Guidelines. It is the framework regulators expect, and most small employers have never seen it.
Run real enrolment education. Participation rates are made or broken in that session, not in the plan design.

What drives the cost

Cost sits in two places: employer contributions, which you control, and investment management fees, which you negotiate. Fees generally fall as plan assets grow — and most employers never go back to renegotiate them, which is free money left on the table.

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Straight answers

Questions employers actually ask us

No hedging. If the honest answer is “you do not need us for that,” that is the answer you will get.

Ask us something else

: A Group RRSP accepts employee and employer contributions, and the employee can generally withdraw at any time — including your matching dollars, which defeats the retention purpose. A DPSP takes employer contributions only and can impose a vesting period, so the money is genuinely tied to staying. The common structure pairs them: employees contribute to the RRSP, the employer matches into the DPSP.
: Almost always education and defaults rather than a richer match. Participation rises sharply with a well-designed default investment option, a match structured to require an employee contribution, and an enrolment session run in plain language by someone who will answer follow-up questions. We run those sessions ourselves rather than sending a fund brochure.
: The Guidelines for Capital Accumulation Plans set out what sponsors of member-directed plans — including Group RRSPs and DPSPs — are expected to do around plan selection, investment options, member education and ongoing review. They are guidelines rather than statute, but they are the benchmark against which a sponsor’s conduct is measured. Most small employers have never been shown them; documenting your governance against them is straightforward and worth doing.