moved for leave to introduce Bill C-265, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 (protection of assets).
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River for supporting this pension initiative. Pensions are on the mind of many Canadians and this particular enactment would provide further protection of the assets of pension plan members and beneficiaries by three important measures: first, to ensure that members have adequate representation on the boards of trustees of pensions, pension committees and pension councils; in other words, mandatory representation of the employee and the beneficiaries of the plan.
Second, it would provide that not more than 10% of the total value of the assets of a pension plan could be held in securities issued by the employer or by a corporation associated with the employer. This is a lesson learned from Enron where employees were strongly encouraged to invest all of their retirement savings in a company they worked for, with all their eggs in one basket, and the results, as we know, were catastrophic.
Third, it would prevent pension plan administrators and beneficiaries from being restricted in the sale of the employer's securities unless those directors and officers of the employer are similarly restricted. In other words, the beneficiary administrators are not allowed to promote the sale of the employer's own stock unless there is some distance put in between them.
Finally, the bill would require that information that affects or is likely to affect the value of securities be provided to pension plan administrators and to persons with the power to trade in those securities at the same time that it is provided to anyone other than the directors, officers, management and advisers of the employer to stop the difficult situation of insider trading.
We believe anything to do with adding to the security of pension plans is necessary and timely in this session of this Parliament and we encourage unanimous support of the legislation and we hope we can find it.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)