Industry committee  Can you repeat the question?

Industry committee  It's just that: I think industry self-regulation in such an important area is precisely not what we need at the moment. We need clear statutory and regulatory rules around industry and clear expectations from industry.

Finance committee  It's important to remember that in CCAA proceedings, the creditors and the sponsors could use the fear of losing everything in liquidation to extract devastating cuts for plan members. Pensioners and other plan members, to the extent that they even know this is happening, are in a very difficult position.

Finance committee  I just said the opposite. If the plan members are still behind the secured creditors in the bankruptcy act priority of claims, then they won't have the bargaining clout or position in restructuring to have better outcomes. It's easy to talk about a good restructuring process, but there are enormous costs in that process as well.

Finance committee  Sure, I'll answer as well as I can. The wage earner protection program has been expanded to cover more termination benefits. That's very important for vulnerable workers. It would be great to have that in this legislation so that those owed payments are also protected. Also, OPEBs, the other pension and related employee benefits in retirement, are extremely important to retirees.

Finance committee  Yes. Again, there is just some confusion over the terms, the unspecified or undefined terms, in this portion of Bill C-228. For the purpose of clarity, and for the purposes of precision and simplicity, it is best to just eliminate those aspects, so yes, we'd agree.

Finance committee  I think the provisions in the bill that allow an administrator of a plan to apply to the superintendent for permission to transfer the liabilities and assets of a plan that is sponsored by a distressed company are just underdetailed. There need to be far more protections for DB plan members to ensure that those accrued DB benefits are not converted to DC or lesser benefits.

Finance committee  Thanks. Just to add to the violent agreement about the shortcomings of omnibus bills, this is another example of where removing division 32 from Bill C-19 for separate study would be a service to parliamentarians and to all stakeholders of the EI system who want to see this fundamental institutional reform happen prudently and with the right amount of accountability, so that we don't repeat the experience of the Social Security Tribunal.

Industry committee  Sure. Maybe I can take a quick stab at that. There's no question that a lot of distressed companies have been kept afloat through emergency financial assistance from the government over the course of the pandemic. A lot of business supports have been extended through this year, but the question is what happens when some of those supports are withdrawn.

Industry committee  No, he's had to depart.

Industry committee  There's only one province, one jurisdiction, in Canada that has mandatory pension insurance for private sector DB plans, and that is Ontario, with the PBGF. Otherwise, some countries have similar arrangements. Mr. Powell mentioned the United States and the PBGC. The United Kingdom has a pension protection fund as well.

Industry committee  There are a number of ways to do it. Remember that wage claims—unpaid wages—were initially debated in the same fashion. Should they be granted a superpriority and placed ahead of secured creditors, or should there be a fund set up to ensure that workers would be made whole and the government would be able to subrogate those rights and pursue those claims in insolvency?

Industry committee  I was simply going to try to respond to what I understood to be your question, which is how Canada's insolvency process compares to other jurisdictions in the way it treats workers and pensioners. I would say, “Poorly.” The insolvency process in northern and western Europe, I think, produces far better outcomes for workers and pensioners for a whole series of reasons, in part because there are more mechanisms to prevent companies from entering bankruptcy and insolvency liquidation with pension deficits that result in workers and pensioners being harmed.

Human Resources committee  Yes, sure. It's a very timely issue, given what we're learning about the experience of individuals who've contracted COVID, that many of them are so-called “long-haulers”. They have a long and episodic set of symptoms that return and recur periodically over time. For individuals with episodic disabilities, the EI sickness benefit, and really the EI system itself, isn't very well set up to deal with people who are sick for a few days, then are well enough to work for the next few days, and then are sick again.

International Trade committee  To my knowledge, there has not been outreach just yet. It doesn't mean that we can't get questions answered the same way that the Business Council and the chamber have implied, but no, we haven't been involved in consultations.