Defined Benefit pension plans are not as common today as they used to be. Unlike a Defined Contribution pension plan, with Defined Benefit the sponsoring company guarantees its employees a certain level of retirement income regardless of the investment performance of the contributed money. In other words, the company assumes the investment risk, while with Defined Contribution plans this risk falls entirely on the employee. Very few companies in Canada still have Defined benefit plans, with a few exceptions. Nobody likes to carry the investment risk unless it is absolutely required. You can hardly get such a plan today, but there are still many of them out there.