Can the common law rule in Saunders v. Vautier be employed to terminate the pension trust?

In Buschau, the members of the defined benefit pension plan maintained that the rule in Saunders v. Vautier could be employed to terminate the pension trust and argued, in the alternative, that Rogers should terminate the plan pursuant to its fiduciary duty under the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985, R.S.C. 1985, c. 32 (2nd Supp.) ("PBSA"). The common law rule in Saunders v. Vautier was summarized by Deschamps J., at para. 21, as "allowing beneficiaries of a trust to depart from the settlor's original intentions provided that they are of full legal capacity and are together entitled to all the rights of beneficial ownership in the trust property".

In Buschau, Deschamps J. for the majority described defined benefit plans and discussed the question of surplus concluding, consistent with established jurisprudence, that while a defined benefit pension plan is in operation, individuals entitled to the surplus assets do not have a specific interest in them. The right to surplus is crystallized only when the surplus becomes ascertainable upon termination of the plan. See Schmidt v. Air Products Canada Ltd., 1994 CanLII 104 (SCC), [1994] 2 S.C.R. 611, [1994] S.C.J. No. 48.