I think this is more complex, then an employer vs worker issue:

When the Govt originally made these pension investment “corporations”, the notion was: “go invest this money and build up enough that we can pay all the members out their defined benefit”, if something goes wrong the government will back the pension sort of “de-risking” the investment.

With that de-risking comes the other side of the coin, excess surpluses go to the government, the original agreement stipulated that, this is not a “the government is unilaterally taking money”, this is something in the original contract. i.e it’s not a surprise to anyone.

This gets to the heart of the matter. Though workers and employers both make contributions, employers ultimately hold all the decision-making power over workers’ pension plans.

This is true, but this is also a defined benefit pension: members know exactly how much they are getting from the pension at all times (with some assumptions about what their work history will be). They shouldn’t be expecting more, and (for the positive side they know they won’t be getting less). These kinds of pensions are rare, and everyone should want one.

As PSAC warns, “If the government can poach pension funds from its own employees, what’s to stop other employers from following suit and putting millions more at risk?”

I don’t think this argument holds much weight, this isn’t a flippant decision but something that was decided ages ago.

It also miss states that the money belonged to the employee’s or employer in the first place, it does not belong to either it’s more of a backup to gurantee future benefits