Note 6 - Pension Benefits

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2014

Compensation and Retirement Disclosure [Abstract]

Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits Disclosure [Text Block]

6. Pension Benefits

The following sets forth the components of net periodic employee benefit cost of the Company’s defined benefit pension plans for the three months ended March 31, 2014 and 2013:

	Three months ended March 31,
	Pension Benefits
	U.S. Plan						Canadian Plan
	2014			2013			2014			2013
Service Cost	$	-		$	-		$	-		$	-
Interest Cost		38,116			41,634			15,220			12,950
Expected return on plan assets		(38,925	)		(38,603	)		(16,762	)		(17,415	)
Net actuarial loss		11,445			-			7,644			-
Amortizations		-			23,415			-			-
Net periodic benefit cost	$	10,636		$	26,446		$	6,102		$	(4,465	)

The Company has frozen the accrual of any additional benefits under the U.S. defined benefit pension plan effective July 15, 2005.

Effective January 1, 2009, the Company converted its pension plan for its Canadian employees (the “Canadian Plan”) from a noncontributory defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. Until the conversion, benefits for the salaried employees were based on specified percentages of the employees’ monthly compensation. The conversion of the Canadian Plan has the effect of freezing the accrual of future defined benefits under the plan. Under the defined contribution plan, the Company will contribute 3% of employee compensation plus 50% of employee elective contributions up to a maximum contribution of 5% of employee compensation.

The Fair Value Measurements and Disclosure Topic of the FASB Accounting Standards Codification requires the categorization of financial assets and liabilities, based on the inputs to the valuation technique, into a three-level fair value hierarchy. The fair value hierarchy gives the highest priority to the quoted prices in active markets for identical assets and liabilities and lowest priority to unobservable inputs. The various values of the Fair Value Measurements and Disclosure Topic fair value hierarchy are described as follows:

Level 1 — Financial assets and liabilities whose values are based on unadjusted quoted market prices for identical assets and liabilities in an active market that the Company has the ability to access.

Level 2 — Financial assets and liabilities whose values are based on quoted prices in markets that are not active or model inputs that are observable for substantially the full term of the asset or liability.

Level 3 — Financial assets and liabilities whose values are based on prices or valuation techniques that require inputs that are both unobservable and significant to the overall fair value measurement.

The fair value hierarchy of the plan assets are as follows:

		March 31, 2014
		US Plan		Canadian Plan
Cash and cash equivalents	Level 1	$	122,413	$	19,916
Mutual funds	Level 1		225,370		1,243,752
Corporate/Government Bonds	Level 1		636,540		-
Equities	Level 1		1,083,640		-
Total		$	2,067,963	$	1,263,668

US pension plan assets are invested solely in pooled separate account funds, which are managed by MetLife. The net asset values of the pooled separate account funds are based on the value of the underlying assets owned by the fund, minus its liabilities, and then divided by the number of units outstanding. The unit prices of the pooled separate account funds are not quoted on any market; however, the unit price is based on the underlying investments which are traded in an active market and are priced by independent providers. There have been no significant transfers in or out of Level 1 or Level 2 fair value measurements.

For additional information on the defined benefit pension plans, please refer to Note 10 of the consolidated financial statements included in the 2013 Annual Report.