Who can set up a group RRSP for a small company in Ottawa?
RiskX, an independent Ontario-licensed brokerage. We design and run group RRSP and DPSP plans for Ottawa employers, working by video, with a Canadian platform administering the accounts.
Group Retirement · Ottawa
Who sets up a group RRSP for a small company in Ottawa?
Book a 10-minute callDirect answer
RiskX does. We are an independent, family-owned brokerage licensed in Ontario and Alberta, and we work with Ottawa employers entirely by video: plan design, the annual review, and a named person who answers the phone. Enrolment is digital, delivered as virtual sessions by our Canadian platform partner's team, and the platform administers the accounts. We do not have an Ottawa office, and we will not pretend otherwise. We design plans for companies of 20 to 1,000 people; a 20 to 200 person setup is usually running in about 8 to 10 weeks, and larger plans take longer.
111,200
federal public service employees on the Ontario side of the capital in 2026
526
professional, scientific and technical firms in the 20 to 499 band
116
engineering firms, the highest count of any Ontario city we compared
Who we build for
20 to 1,000+ people
Setup timeline
8 to 10 weeks
typical for a 20 to 200 person setup; larger plans take longer
The other employer in the room has 111,200 people
Every private employer in Ottawa recruits beside a single organization that employed 111,200 people on the Ontario side of the capital in 2026 (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, federal public service population). One employer, one defined benefit plan, the Public Service Superannuation Act behind it. Nowhere else in Canada does a 40-person consulting or engineering firm make an offer against that kind of concentration.
The candidate you want usually holds three offers in mind: the public service itself, a federal contractor out in Kanata, or one of the technology anchors the city is known for. You will not out-pension any of them. What a smaller firm can do is take the pension question off the table: a group RRSP with a visible employer match, and employer dollars in a DPSP that vest over up to 24 months (Income Tax Act s.147(2)(i)), so the comparison a candidate makes is no longer a pension against a blank space.
Ottawa's private economy runs on engineers
Strip out government and Ottawa is still the most professional-services-dense city we measured in Ontario: 526 professional, scientific and technical firms in the 20 to 499 band, including 116 engineering firms, the highest count of any Ontario city we compared (Statistics Canada, Canadian Business Counts, 2025). Kanata North calls itself Canada's largest technology park, with over 800 member companies on the association's current count (Kanata North Business Association, 2026), and the city hosts 65 federal research labs and around 130,000 post-secondary students, a fifth of them in STEM programs (City of Ottawa). Those firms all fish in one talent pool, and the plan you offer is part of how you fish.
Built for security-cleared work
A distinct slice of Ottawa's private economy sells into defence, security and federal IT, where staff carry clearances and the cost of replacing someone is measured in months of vetting, not weeks of recruiting. For those firms, a retirement plan that rewards staying is not an HR nicety; it protects contract delivery. That is a design conversation, and it is the kind we like.
Principals, incorporated consultants, and the plan they cannot join
Ottawa's professional economy is full of incorporated people: principals of engineering and consulting firms, cleared specialists billing through corporations. For them, one clause matters early. The Income Tax Act excludes shareholders holding 10 percent or more, and their relatives, from DPSP membership, so the vesting structure built to keep the team cannot cover the principal. The usual answer has two parts: the principal joins the group RRSP alongside everyone else, and where corporate income is steady, an Individual Pension Plan carries the personal side. We raise it on the first call so it never arrives as a surprise in year two.
What we do, and what the platform does
You bring one ten-minute call and a decision about what the plan is for. RiskX handles the design: match level, eligibility, whether the employer side belongs in a DPSP, the comparison of options, the setup coordination, the yearly review, and the governance file CAPSA expects a sponsor to keep. The platform's own team takes your people through enrolment in virtual sessions and runs the app, payroll integration and statements. It is Canadian, digital and low fee, and we stay independent of it.
The Ontario payroll-tax angle, briefly
In Ontario, how the employer side of the plan is structured affects Employer Health Tax. We keep the full explanation on one page rather than repeating it here: Ontario EHT and group RRSP matching. The one-line version is that a DPSP can change the EHT math, and it is worth fifteen minutes before you set the match.
Fees, timelines, and plans that already exist
The real cost is the match itself, and the honest answer to "what will it run us" is a worked example, not an average. We keep one for a 50-person company, every assumption labelled: our worked 50-person example, plus a calculator on the group retirement page: the match-cost calculator. Setup for a 20 to 200 person company runs about 8 to 10 weeks; larger plans take longer. And if your firm already has a plan from years back, the better first step is a fee review: our fee review.
Ottawa group RRSP questions
Do you have an Ottawa office?
No. Design, reviews and service run by video with a named RiskX contact, and enrolment is delivered virtually by our platform partner's team. We would rather be straightforward about that than rent a boardroom.
How does a private firm compete with the federal pension?
It does not try to match it. A visible employer match, plus DPSP dollars that vest over time, gives a candidate a concrete answer to the pension question, which beats having no answer at all.
Are you licensed in Ontario?
Yes. RiskX is licensed as an insurance brokerage in Alberta and Ontario, and we work with employers across Canada outside Quebec on group retirement plans through our platform partner.
Can the owner join the plan?
The group RRSP side, yes. Owners and shareholders at 10 percent or more, and their relatives, are excluded from DPSP membership by the Income Tax Act; incorporated owners often look at an Individual Pension Plan instead. Ask us on the first call.
How long until the plan is live?
Around 8 to 10 weeks for a 20 to 200 person setup, larger plans longer, with enrolment and payroll integration taking most of that.
What does it cost an employer with 50 people?
The match is the cost. Our worked 50-person example, marked illustrative throughout, is at the worked example page.
Do you work with firms in Kanata, Nepean or Orleans?
Everywhere in the city, yes; the service is virtual, so the tech park and the suburbs are the same distance from us. Kanata firms competing with federal contractors for cleared talent are, if anything, the profile we had in mind writing this page.
Prepared by RiskX
Written by Jarod Smith, CEO, RiskX Insurance Brokers Inc. Reviewed by Gordon Smith, RiskX Insurance Brokers Inc.
Published: August 20, 2026. Updated: August 20, 2026.
Group retirement · Ottawa