Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and distinguished members of the committee.
I am pleased to appear before you today to discuss Bill C-591, An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan and the Old Age Security Act (pension and benefits), a private member's bill sponsored by Dave Van Kesteren, the member for Chatham-Kent—Essex.
I will also provide information on amendments that will be proposed during the clause-by-clause analysis.
Let me begin by speaking briefly about the two pension programs that would be affected by this bill.
The Canada pension plan, or CPP, is a social insurance plan that provides contributors and their families with modest income replacement upon the retirement, disability or death of a contributor. It is funded by the contributions of employers, employees and self-employed individuals, as well as by returns on CPP investments.
Old age security, or OAS, is the largest federal pension program and is funded from the general tax revenues of the Government of Canada. Together, these programs pay out approximately $85 billion per year to Canadians.
Bill C-591 applies to the survivor benefits of these two programs. This includes three different CPP survivor benefits: the monthly survivor's pension paid to the spouse or common-law partner of the deceased CPP contributor; the monthly children's benefit for dependent children of the deceased contributor; and the lump-sum death benefit, which is usually paid to a deceased contributor's estate.
The bill also affects the OAS program's allowance for the survivor, which is provided to low-income widows or widowers aged 60 to 64. To obtain the CPP and OAS benefits, an individual must apply for them and meet the eligibility requirements.
Bill C-591 has no significant cost implication, as it is generally consistent with existing administrative policy. It will affect a small number of individuals, as murder among family members is rare. In recent years, an average of 48 people were charged annually with spousal murder and an average of 21 individuals in all age categories were accused of killing their parent or step-parent. Not all those charged with murder are convicted of murder, and when there is a conviction there will frequently be no possibility of the murderer collecting the survivor benefit due to the eligibility criteria.
Let me outline the key reasons why these requirements may not be met.
Spousal homicides tend to occur among younger individuals. The number of victims is highest among those aged 15 to 34, with the number falling with age according to Statistics Canada. As a result, the deceased may not have contributed for enough years to the CPP to generate survivor benefits. It is also important to know that nearly 60% of those accused of killing their parents between 2003 and 2012 were over the age of 25 and therefore ineligible for the CPP orphan benefit. Finally, many people who murder their spouse will not meet the eligibility criteria for the OAS allowance for the survivor.
For such reasons, we estimate that as currently written, Bill C-591 would potentially affect a maximum of 30 individuals per year, and some of these people will never apply for the benefit. This is in the context of a public pension system in which the CPP and the OAS each pay benefits to more than 5 million people every year.
I will now provide you with a quick overview of how the bill would work.
A person who has been charged with the murder of a spouse, common-law partner or parent would still be eligible to receive survivor benefits under the principle of being innocent until proven guilty. When the department learns that such an individual has been convicted of murder, this person would be disqualified from receiving further survivor benefits and steps would be taken to recover the benefits already paid, which would become a debt to the Crown. If this individual were subsequently to be found innocent on appeal, the full value of their benefit would be reinstated.
The bill would not remove eligibility for the orphan benefits when minor children are convicted of murdering a parent, because children under the age of 18 don't receive the benefit directly; it is the parent or guardian who receives it on the child's behalf, and the benefit helps cover the costs of caring for the child. Bill C-591 avoids creating a situation in which the department would demand repayment from a grieving widow whose child has just been convicted of murdering her husband. This would amount to punishing the victim. Children over the age of 18, however, receive the orphan benefit directly and would be ineligible to do so if convicted of murdering a parent.
Technical amendments will be proposed to ensure that the bill applies consistently to the OAS allowance for the survivor; that the minister will be able to render individuals ineligible for the CPP death benefit; and that the eligibility for non-guilty individuals is protected. The objective of these proposed minor amendments is simply to prevent the bill from having unintended results that would undermine its effectiveness.
More substantively, amendments will be proposed to include in the bill conviction for manslaughter alongside first- and second-degree murder convictions. Manslaughter is considered unintended homicide, although there may be intent to cause harm.
Manslaughter covers a wide spectrum of cases, ranging from near accidents to near murders. The department's existing administrative policy does not apply to manslaughter convictions. The reason is that the courts have indicated that the principle of ex turpi causa—one should not benefit from his crime—should not be automatically applied to offences such as manslaughter without examining the specific circumstances of each case. ESDC officials—our department—are not qualified to make such determinations, so the administrative policy was limited to murder convictions, to which the principle of ex turpi causa always applies.
Although manslaughter indicates a lesser degree of moral culpability than murder, manslaughter convictions do require criminal intent and reasonable foreseeability of a serious risk of bodily harm. The wide range of manslaughter cases, however, raises the possibility that there will be exceptional cases in which the removal of survivor benefits would be inappropriate. For this reason, the amendment being proposed by the government would allow eligibility for survivor benefits to be retained in those rare instances in which the circumstances surrounding the offence cause the courts to give a suspended sentence to an individual convicted of manslaughter. Suspended sentences show limited intent or significant mitigating circumstances.
If Bill C-591 is amended to remove eligibility for survivor benefits in cases of manslaughter, there will be no significant cost implications for the plan. Approximately two more individuals per year would be affected, on average, for a total of fewer than 32 each year. There would be an initial surge above that number, as the proposed amendment would apply retroactively.
In summary, the government will propose some technical amendments to better reflect the intent of Bill C-591. It will also propose amendments to remove eligibility for OAS and CPP survivor benefits for individuals convicted of manslaughter.
At the same time, the amendments would recognize that there are likely to be a small number of manslaughter cases in which eligibility for these benefits should be retained due to the extraordinary circumstances of the crime.
Let me conclude by thanking you once again for this opportunity to contribute to your study of the bill.
