Industry Committee on Nov. 18th, 2010

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

My time is up, but I just want to thank you for taking the time to come today.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

I just want to advise members before you go--some may have to go--that I have an important piece of information I'd like to share with you in camera after we dismiss the witnesses, so we'll try to clear the room as quickly as we can. I'll give you that information as quickly as possible. I have to go to another committee as well.

I'm conscious that you have time left, Mr. Rafferty.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, thank you for coming.

Trust is a very important word. As I look out the window and I see Centre Block there, I want to assure everybody on this panel that I have had lots of discussions with not only many around this table but also with many other MPs who are not here today, and there is a will among MPs to remedy the situation, just so you know. That's among everyone here and everyone else I've talked to, so trust us.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I can only go with what they tell me and with what everybody else has told me, and there really is a will. There is also a recognition that there is some urgency. We've just been through a recession--and Mr. Lake has already talked about the fragility of that--and the economists are telling us that we're in for a rough 2011. We don't know what's going to happen, so there is some urgency to doing something here and now on this.

To be clear for everyone, I'd like to ask all of you to relate a very short story about what has happened to someone because of what has happened, in particular with severance and termination, but first I want to ask Mr. Hanlon something. When we're talking about termination and severance moneys, what sort of dollar figure would that mean, just so everybody knows? What sort of dollar figure are we talking about for someone who has worked for Sapawe Lumber, which is a Buchanan company that went bankrupt in my riding?

[Joe Hanlon]

We're talking about weeks of service, so it's approximately $1,000 per week of service. The legislation in Ontario is capped at 26 weeks per year of service. Some of our collective agreements are capped at 52 weeks, so the termination could be up to $52,000. Our termination pay is eight weeks for every year of service. It depends on whether you are going to do a mass layoff.

We're not talking huge dollars and cents. I mean no disrespect to the pensions--the pensions need to be funded also--but we're not talking the same dollars as a pension plan when it comes to severance and termination.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Let's say I worked for that forest company all my life. I left school and started at 18, let's say, and worked 40 years. What sort of package would I have been expecting, really, since the age of 18, in terms of severance and termination?

[Joe Hanlon]

You mean for severance and termination.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I don't mean pension, but just those two.

[Joe Hanlon]

If we're talking severance and termination, with 40 years you're probably talking at least $40,000 to $50,000.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

In the scheme of things, as you said, for a pension that's not a lot of money, but that's a lot of money when you expect to have a future. You expect to have a pension and you expect to have some termination benefits and so on.

Maybe we could start with Ms. Johannink for a quick story about how this has affected her, and maybe Mr. Hanlon could add a story too.

[Melanie Johannink]

Sure. I was at Nortel for 18 years. I got married and had two kids. My kids are now seven and nine. I'm still not working. It's been 18 months. I am trying to look for a job very aggressively, but there's not much out there.

I look at my two kids and I say that I have to hide this as much as I can so they don't see it. The one thing I'm teaching them is to stand up and fight for their rights. At the end of the day it will hopefully all come through and they will have a better world.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Would you comment, Mr. Hanlon?

[Joe Hanlon]

Just to get a sense of understanding of what happens in northern Ontario, I'm going to use the community of White River. There are 1,000 people who live in that community. We had 240 people who worked in the mill and the woodlands, so 24% of the total population lost their jobs. If that happened here in Ottawa today, there would be mass hysteria. Every party of the government would be there. Everybody would be doing what they can. If it's in northern Ontario, it's a story for a day or two, and then it's all forgotten. Let's not forget those people.

I appreciate what John has just said about all parties being interested in doing something to fix this. I really appreciate all the work that you're going to do. It will assist our members and assist the people from northern Ontario and across Canada.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Hanrieder, Ms. Comeau, or Mr. Wacheski, do you have comments?

[Tony Wacheski]

The severance claim for Nortel is $165 million. The lawyer fees are expected to be over $300 million. If we just change the law to give us our severance when we get laid off, we'd save the creditors a lot of money and everything would be much better.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much, Madame Comeau. Thank you to Mr. Wacheski, Ms. Johannink, Mr. Hanrieder, Mr. Phatak, and Mr. Hanlon. I appreciate your being here and I apologize for the brevity of the required statements and questions.

We'll suspend for two minutes and then we'll go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]