Public employee pension systems around the world show remarkable diversity in design and execution. Among these, the U.S. defined benefit public pension system has drawn increased attention because of questions about the longterm sustainability of many of the underlying pension funds-as well as concerns of equity between pension plan members, retirees, taxpayers, bondholders, and users of public services. The Covid-19 pandemic introduced new fissures in state and local government finances, heightening the need to bolster long-term public pension fund robustness. As an alternative model, the Canadian public pension system is widely respected. This was not foreordained. The authors trace difficult decisions undertaken in Canada in the 1980s and 1990s along with essential descriptive features of the Canadian Model. Using a novel primary dataset, the authors benchmark the 25 largest U.S. plans against their ten largest Canadian peers, exploring key issues in a paired analysis. The authors extract fundamental lessons from the Canadian experience, proposing a roadmap for reform of the U.S. public pension system. They argue that long-term pension sustainability, once politically prioritized, must be built on equity and discipline in plan design, funding, and amortization of existing deficits. They emphasize the importance