Bill C-201 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act (deletion of deduction from annuity)

This enactment amends the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act to eliminate the deduction of Canada Pension Plan benefits from the annuity payable under each of these Acts.

Canadian Forces Superannuation Act

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-201 presented by the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore deals with the deduction of CPP benefits from the superannuation with respect to the military and RCMP. It affects them when they reach 65 years old and their CPP benefits, to which they are entitled as are all Canadians, are deducted from their superannuation, for which they are also eligible.

Interestingly, among those federal employees to whom this clawback does not apply are members of Parliament. MPs, senators and judges are not treated the same way as our RCMP and military.

To make matters worse, for those who are disabled and over 50 years of age, their disability benefits are also deducted from their superannuation. This is obviously unacceptable and must be rectified. When those disabled people turn 65, their disability stops and they are back into the first scenario where their CPP benefits are deducted from their superannuation.

This is an obvious problem that needs correcting. The Conservative Party does not seem at all disposed to correct it. The Liberals seem to be sitting on the fence, as is often the case; they have been back and forth and a little unclear on this subject. Hopefully, they will act with the rest of the opposition to right this wrong.

Speaking of the Liberals, back in 1999, the Chrétien-Martin government took $56 billion or $57 billion in EI funds and moved them into general revenues. That government took $20 billion or more of the surplus in the superannuation fund and moved it into general revenues, as well. It is time for the Liberals to make a step toward righting that grievous wrong and to vote on the right side of this issue.

The veterans are bearing the liabilities of their job, the responsibilities that they shouldered for Canadians in many ways. Today, it is our responsibility to balance their liabilities and protect them from a problem they did not create. They need that help.

What does the NDP want from this bill?

This private member's bill, an act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act , would eliminate those deductions, clawbacks, from their annuities. This was first introduced back in 2005. The time to rectify this problem is long overdue.

The NDP's veterans first motion passed in the House of Commons in 2006. That motion called for an end to the clawback of service pensions. Repeatedly, the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has pressed the government and all parliamentarians to act on this issue.

There are many petitions on this subject. On one petition alone over 110,000 individuals from across Canada have signed it to support this initiative. There are signatures of many former colonels and generals on a petition developed by the RCMP and the Canadian Forces.

Wayne Wannamaker, a retired veteran from Whitehorse, encouraged politicians in the Yukon legislature to pass the following motion:

THAT this House urges the Government of Canada to recognize that the unilateral decision in 1966 to integrate the Canadian Forces Superannuation and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation with the Canada Pension Plan contributions imposed an injustice and unfairness upon members and the retirees of the Canadian Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and therefore should take action to remedy that injustice.

In Nova Scotia Resolution No. 963 was adopted in 2006 urging “the Government of Canada to investigate this matter immediately and end the unfair policy of benefit reduction to our veterans of the military and the RCMP”.

To summarize, the bill would fix a problem where the RCMP and Canadian military veterans' benefits are clawed back unfairly. Under the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act the clawback begins to take effect when a plan member retires and reaches age 65, or when a plan member becomes entitled to draw CPP disability benefits. But this issue is fundamentally about respect: respect for those serving in the line of duty, respect for veterans who have served our country willingly and honourably. The least that we could do is to support them with their needs after they have given so much to our country.

Veterans in my riding of Thunder Bay—Superior North are watching how the various parties deal with the bill. The disabled veterans are watching especially as Bill C-201 would really help them. Like many ridings, Thunder Bay--Superior North has many veterans from World War II, the Korean war and peacekeeping operations, just to name a few. I have met with many of the veterans in my riding who support the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore's initiative, veterans including those from Branch No. 5 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Port Arthur and Branch No. 219 as well. What do they think of the behaviour of the governing Conservatives in committee who gutted the bill? What do they think of the opposition Liberals who abstained from standing up for veterans in committee when the Conservatives were gutting the bill? They could have stopped this.

Thousands of veterans across the country and their families support Bill C-201 and seek an end to the reduction of pension benefits at age 65, or earlier if disabled. This is an issue of fairness.

Canadian Forces and RCMP members were not consulted as to how they wished to fund their plan contributions when the CPP was introduced. As well, the Canadian Forces and the RCMP have roles and a lifestyle distinct from the general community. They have faced dangerous conditions, extended family separations, hazards to their health and safety, long stretches of overtime, frequent postings and the difficulty for many spouses of members to retain employment and contribute to their own pension plans.

To end, men and women in the Canadian Forces and the RCMP pay the unlimited liability providing service to our country. As parliamentarians, we have the ultimate responsibility to ensure these men and women are taken care of from the moment they sign up until the moment they pass on. Canada's Canadian Forces and RCMP veterans are our greatest heroes and our country's greatest volunteers. With all of their sacrifice they deserve to be treated with fairness, with dignity and with security in their service years and in their retirement years.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak to Bill C-201, An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act. As we know and as veterans, RCMP members and their families across the country know, this has to do with the CPP clawback for veterans and service people.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

It is not a clawback.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, someone said it is not a clawback, but a deduction from one's pension by any other name can be considered a clawback by the person whose military pension is being reduced. I understand that the Conservative Party does not support this bill, but the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, who has been championing this bill for some years now, and I agree that there ought to be special consideration given for veterans and RCMP officers. One might ask why. There are good reasons why and I will get to them shortly.

I want to echo what the member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour said. We as parliamentarians are in a very special position in this country. Not only do we get to sit in the House of Commons, in Parliament, but we also get invited on numerous occasions to join with veterans to remember the service they gave and to support their efforts to look after veterans.

The Royal Canadian Legion is one of those organizations. I am sure that many members of the House were at events over the past weekend. I visited and had dinner with Branch 50 at CBS, Conception Bay South, on Saturday night. They are working to rebuild a war memorial in their town. They are moving the one from the old place and building a memorial not only to veterans of the armed forces, but also police and firefighters. It is a combined memorial with a separate place for veterans. They have a private place in the middle of that memorial and there are side memorials for the others. That is a great community effort made by Branch 50 in CBS.

Yesterday afternoon I was on Bell Island celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic with veterans and the community. As some members may know, if they listened to my speech on the occasion of Juno Beach last June, Newfoundland and Labrador was the only place in North America with a direct hit from the German army and navy during the second world war. Four boats were sunk by torpedos from U-boats in September and November 1942 while docked on Bell Island to take on iron ore. The Caribou ferry also sank in the Cabot Strait with a significant loss of life. Again, that was enemy action during wartime, which Newfoundland and Labrador alone experienced in North America.

We do have a close connection with the veterans. The member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has brought that to the House and we offer our support of that. I want to explain why. Aside from the great contribution that veterans, people in the armed forces and people in the RCMP have made to keep our communities and our country in keeping our country safe, they also have families that move around constantly during their careers. A member of the Canadian Forces could move from one base to another and over the course of a career move to many different places. It is the same with RCMP officers who are often moved from one community to another with their families.

This creates a particular family dynamic. It is often difficult for a spouse to maintain an employment career that is equal to those who might be in a stationary workforce. This obviously affects their long-term income as a family and clearly would have, as a consequence, a greater need for retirement income. This is one way to recognize that.

As my colleague from Timmins—James Bay mentioned earlier, we have a government that constantly reminds us and tries to suggest that, among all members of the House, its members are the ones who support our veterans, our troops and the armed forces. However, when we look at something like this, it pales. When there is a real opportunity to make the retirement lives of our veterans and serving RCMP officers better, the government does not support it.

It falls into the category of lip service. It is shameful that the government has taken away the opportunity or is not prepared to grant the opportunity for veterans to continue to receive their full pensions and enjoy their retirement instead of having them clawed back at age 65 when the Canada pension plan kicks in.

The government did not cause this problem. This was a problem that was inherent in the structure of the Canada pension plan when it was introduced in 1966, but it is a problem that it can help us fix. The member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has been working on this for several years. He indicates five years. I have heard him talk about it many times in caucus, in the House and with veterans who are very interested in this issue.

I am sure veterans will be talking to the member from Alberta, whose riding I cannot remember at the moment. They have spoken to me about it. They raise it at events. I am sure when the member speaks, he will give an explanation as to why the government is saying no. Perhaps he will. I hope he is explaining it to the individual veterans who we speak with, who are concerned enough about this issue to sign petitions in massive numbers. More than 100,000 petitioners have signed in support of this.

It is well known in Canadian legions across the country that this action is taking place. I hope people are paying attention to the debate. Not only is it important that we support our troops and recognize they are providing a great service to us, but service to veterans is something that my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore has been championing ever since he has been in the House.

This year he is celebrating, along with other nationals of Holland, the liberation of Holland by Canadian troops. My colleague is both a native of Holland and a very proud Canadian citizen. However, also very dear to his heart is the relationship between Holland and not only the Canadian soldiers of today and yesterday but all Canadians. The Canadian people are recognized by the people of the Netherlands for the liberation and the commitment and sacrifice that Canadian soldiers were prepared to make during World War II to liberate them from the Nazi occupation and oppression.

This is one of the things that makes Canadians proud, that other countries respect the sacrifice and willingness that our young men and women were able and willing to undertake for the cause of freedom to fight off Nazi oppression during World War II. It had to be done and our young men and women were prepared to make the sacrifice to do that, in both Canada and Newfoundland and Labrador, which was a separate country at the time. I am sure all members of the House know that. If they do not, they will certainly know it by the time I leave here. It is obviously part of our constitutional history.

It is important to remember that our country is made up of many parts, and we all come together for the greater good and a great cause in the nation of Canada and our place in the world today. However, how we treat our veterans is also a mark of how well we respect the work they do on our behalf throughout their lives and working careers. The same goes for RCMP officers who put their lives on the line to protect our communities throughout their working careers as well.

I would ask all hon. members to support this bill and those who have been speaking against it to reconsider their vote, if it comes to a vote this morning.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill C-201. I want to thank the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for doing such a brilliant job in staying on this bill and bringing it forward.

We just heard from my colleague that he has been working on this for about five years. I think it is a testament to a member in the House that, when they get a bill and they know the issue is really important, they do not let it go. Certainly the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore is one of those members. He has understood this as an important issue not only in his own community but right across the country.

To support the bill, which amends the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act to eliminate the deduction of the Canada pension plan benefits from the annuity payable under each of these acts, is one of those small things but it is a matter that has a big impact on people's lives and on their financial stability, particularly when they are retired.

Therefore I would like to thank the member for bringing this forward so that we are now having the opportunity to debate the bill at report stage and hopefully see it proceed to third reading.

I have to say that I always find it quite amusing when I hear from Conservative members. Somehow they have this sense of entitlement and ownership, that they are the only ones who speak for veterans or the military in the House and that is their territory.

The reality is that this is an issue that goes across all party lines. It is non-partisan. It is an issue that, as I have said, our member from Sackville—Eastern Shore and other members in the New Democrat caucus and members from other parties are very concerned about. It concerns what happens to our veterans when they return from Afghanistan, what happens to them when they become pensioners and what their quality of life is about.

It is easy to put the rhetoric out there about the military and supporting our troops. However, the bill is about what actually happens to people, whether it is the military families who are still here in Canada and the quality of life they have in terms of benefits on the military bases, access to education and health care, support and counselling or whether it is the members of the military and for sure what happens to the members when they are retired.

When we look at the overall picture, it is very regrettable that many veterans are actually living in poverty. The same may be true even of members of the RCMP when they retire; I am not so familiar with that. But certainly I can say in my community in east Vancouver we have an unbelievable problem of veterans who are living below the poverty line. They are homeless. They are people who are destitute on the streets.

In fact I was very happy that a couple of months ago theMinister of Veterans Affairs and Minister of State for Agriculture came to east Vancouver, came to the downtown east side, and specifically announced an initiative to set up a storefront operation to actually do outreach to veterans who are in great distress, to make sure they are getting all of the benefits they are entitled to. It is a program that is being partnered with other organizations.

It is just the tip of the iceberg. When a minister has to go into a local community to announce something like that, it gives us a sense of understanding of the problem of what we are facing, that there are so many veterans in this country who are going without and who are facing difficulty.

Again I go back to the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore and the fact that he raised in the House even last week, Friday it was, the unbelievable situation where we have a veteran's food bank in Calgary, visited by the Prime Minister. Maybe it is seen as a photo op or something. However, to us it is a very horrific situation and it is a very graphic example of what is happening to veterans in this country, that veterans are relying on food banks, that they are relying on outreach initiatives, that veterans are homeless, that they do not have even the bare essentials of a quality of life.

How could this be, in a country and with a government that claims to put this at the top of its agenda?

I am very glad that the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has raised this in the House of Commons, as has our leader, the member for Toronto—Danforth. They have said to the Prime Minister what a political outrage it is that a photo op took place of a visit to a food bank set up for veterans. We are not addressing the systemic issues within the department that are facing veterans across the country.

We recognize that Bill C-201 is just one element of the bigger picture, and it has to do with the pension element. I am very proud as a New Democrat to say that our caucus has raised this issue many times in the House of Commons. Motions have passed in the House for a seniors' charter. We believe strongly that all seniors in this country should live with dignity, with respect, as all people should, but particularly seniors, who have contributed so much to our country, whether through military service, emergency services or many other occupations and fields.

That in this day and age we are facing this critical issue with seniors, particularly women, who are living in impoverished conditions, just shows how much has changed in this country and how big the gap has become between wealth and poverty.

This is not an issue of a lack of wealth and resources. We live in an extremely wealthy country. There is extraordinary wealth in our economy, in our natural resources and in our ability to make decisions that provide a basis of equality.

It is really very concerning that in this day and age we are still dealing with these kinds of issues. If anything, we have lost ground as a result of decades of deregulation, of privatization, of erosion of our social safety net and erosion of social services that help people and ensure there is a measure of equality.

Although we have made advances under the law and there have been significant court cases about equality issues, the fact is that this goes beyond what is written in the law. It goes to the heart of government policy. It goes to the heart of public policy and what we do here to represent the public interest and the interests of our constituents.

I for one am very glad that those three ex-service personnel, who visited the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore about five years ago, raised this issue and brought it to his attention. That resulted in this private member's bill being put forward.

Here we are today debating this bill with the ability to make sure this clawback is changed. We can ensure members of the military and the RCMP, who are on pension, do not have their superannuation affected but receive the full benefits they should be entitled to.

I know there is opposition to this bill. We are here today in this debate to say to members that this is an important bill. It is a bill we can adopt. This bill would improve the lives of individual seniors in this country. It would affect about 84,000 veterans and about 12,000 retirees from the RCMP. These are not small numbers. This bill would affect 100,000 people. Each of us, in determining how we are going to vote on this bill, can make a positive decision to ensure these members in our communities actually get their full benefits.

Let us make sure we not only pass this bill but we go beyond it, that we put into reality the seniors' charter, that we make sure seniors are not living below the poverty line, that we increase the guaranteed income supplement, that we improve our Canada pension plan. These things are all related.

Our caucus sees this issue as a priority and we are prepared to address it. We wholeheartedly support the bill that is before us.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 98, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, May 5, 2010, immediately before the time provided for private members' business. The recorded division will also apply to Motion Nos. 2 through 11.

The House resumed from May 3 consideration of Bill C-201, An Act to amend the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act (deletion of deduction from annuity), as reported (with amendment) from the committee, and of the motions in Group No. 1.