What is the current state of the law on a pension plan administrator’s duty of care to members of the pension plan?

My reading of Hembruff leads me to conclude that that case does not support the plaintiffs’ position. Indeed, I am of the opinion that in many respect, the decision runs counter to the plaintiffs’ theory. Hembruff stands for the principle that an administrator owes a duty of care to members of a pension plan when it chooses to provide them with information about the plan. However, in relation to a positive obligation to provide information, it is only to disclose presently existing “highly relevant” information. Gillese J.A. specifically rejects the notion that “highly relevant information” is meant to include future possible facts or events like benefit enhancements or opinion or judgment about the terms of the plan. The main reason for this is that a reasonable plan member could not rely on that information when deciding to act one way or the other. At paragraph 76, Gillese J.A. writes: “[76] As Cognos makes clear, a pension plan administrator has an obligation to disclose ‘highly relevant’ information. Failure to disclose accurate and complete information regarding a pension plan’s existing terms and options can amount to an untrue, inaccurate or misleading representation. However, information on what a pension plan’s terms potentially might be is not highly relevant. Because such information is a forecast as to the future, it is speculative in nature and, therefore, not information on which it would be reasonable to rely. That a representation must be a matter of ascertainable fact, as distinguished from an opinion or expectation, was explained in Hinchey v. Gonda, [1955] O.W.N. 125 (H.C.J.), at p. 128: It is, of course, well settled that a representation, to be of effect in law, should be in respect of an ascertainable fact as distinguished from a mere matter of opinion. A representation which amounts merely to a statement of opinion, judgment, probability or expectation, or is vague and indefinite in its nature and terms, or is merely a loose, conjectural or exaggerated statement, goes for nothing, though it may not be true, for a man is not justified in placing reliance on it.