Bill C-481 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age)

This enactment amends the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code to prohibit federally regulated employers — that is, private-sector employers subject to federal acts and regulations, as well as the federal public administration — from setting a mandatory retirement age.

Financial Statement of Minister of Finance

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to share my time with the member for Mount Royal.

I rise today in the House to take part in the debate in response to this government’s very disappointing budget.

The media, the business and academic communities have all reached the same conclusion as we have on this side of the House. This is a lame duck budget and we give it a failing grade.

This budget is being called “a kind of half-hearted effort, incremental in nature, designed for political effect”.

These are not my words, these are the words of Christopher Dunn, an academic at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. He went on to say that there was some nominal social spending targeted at specific voters to “leave an impression of a government that hadn't forgot about average voters without actually doing that much for them”.

The official opposition leader put it very succinctly in his question to the government yesterday when he said:

Mr. Speaker, spending billions of dollars on stealth fighters, corporate tax cuts and mega prisons means the Canadian family has to be shortchanged.

There is nothing in the budget on affordable housing. There is nothing in it on child care. There is nothing to support our health system. These are the priorities of Canadian families.

Why is the Prime Minister out of touch and out of control?

How does the government fail to support Canadian seniors? On page 109 of the budget document, low income seniors are expected to get a guaranteed income supplement of $600 for single seniors and $840 for couples. Single recipients with an annual income, other than old age security and guaranteed income supplement, of $2,000 or less, and couples with an annual income of $4,000 or less will get the full amount of the benefit.

What is shocking about this is that the government is not making these increases permanent given that the benefit will be clawed back when the annual income level reaches $4,000 for singles and $7,360 for couples.

Residents in my riding of Laval—Les Îles pointed out to me that in real dollars, eligible seniors would receive exactly $1.20 per day. Obviously the Prime Minister has not gone grocery shopping for a long time. Otherwise, he would have noticed that milk costs $3.79 and sometimes up to $5.00. So, $1.20 will not even be enough to buy a quart of milk.

Let us imagine the Prime Minister or any of his cabinet members trying to live on that type of income with bread an average $3 a loaf; eggs, $2.69 a dozen; apples at $3.34 a kilogram; canned salmon at $3.15 for 213 grams. These were average prices in 2010.

What is the government's real commitment to supporting families and communities? The budget documents says:

The Government recognizes the contributions seniors have made and is committed to ensuring that they continue to have a good quality of life.

I am quoting the finance minister's own words.

Let me congratulate the finance minister and his team for co-opting my private member's bill, Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age), which was reported to Parliament last Monday, as one of their priorities within the budget.

The budget indicated that the government clearly supports my bill, since the Minister of Finance wrote on page 112 of that document that:

The government proposes to introduce amendments to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code to prohibit federally regulated employers from setting a mandatory retirement age unless there is a bona fide occupational requirement. This would allow Canadians to choose how long they wish to remain active in the labour force. The government will review other acts to further this objective.

If the government truly believes what it says, why does it want to introduce a new bill when my private member's bill has already gone through committee?

Why the delaying tactics? I strongly urge the government to pass the legislation through Parliament and the Senate as quickly as possible, instead of waiting to create a new piece of legislation. Let me take the opportunity at this time to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour, members of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities and my colleagues on both sides of the House for their support in getting this bill as far as it has gone in the legislative process.

I want to remind the government that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, on which I am a member, undertook a major study on poverty in Canada. The report, which contained 59 recommendations, was tabled in the House on November 17, 2010. How did the minister respond? The government's response was to refuse every recommendation the committee proposed and it is a government that purports to value families.

The budget could have been a golden opportunity to state clearly that the government would immediately implement recommendation 3.1.1 of the standing committee's report and put in place a federal action plan to reduce poverty in Canada. Instead, we have a budget that ignores families and a budget that ignores children. Canadian parents are still waiting on the promised 250,000 child care spaces for their children, which have never materialized.

A Liberal government will return corporate tax rates to 2010 levels and tackle the deficit while strengthening Canadian families with investments in the following measures: a real family care plan, with a six-month family care EI benefit, and a new refundable tax benefit for working families worth up to $1,350 per year.

The Conservative budget provides no EI benefits, but rather a paltry tax credit that does nothing for low-income caregivers and is worth only $300 a year.

We are also proposing improvements to public pensions, by strengthening the base Canada Pension Plan with gradual increases to benefits and creating an option for topping-up savings with a new supplemental CPP, instead of just a modest GIS benefit that works out to only $1.20 per eligible senior a day.

The Liberals are also proposing support for learning and training, so that all Canadians who get the grades can get the skills they need to get quality, full-time jobs, instead of the paltry $34 per student that the Conservative government is offering. We are proposing quality, affordable early learning and child care, to give our kids the head start they need by offering working families a real choice when they need to find child care spaces for their kids.

What does the Conservative budget propose? It is offering just $75 per year for art classes.

My colleagues and I fully intend to vote against this budget.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 11th and 12th reports of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-304, An Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable housing for Canadians, and Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age). The committee has studied both bills and has decided to report each bill back to the House with an amendment.

I wish to thank all of the committee members for their work and collaboration in the course of this process.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

I would, therefore, like to move the following amendment:

That Bill C-481be amended by adding after line 15 on page 1 the following new clause: “COMING INTO FORCE“ 4. This Act comes into force one year after the day on which it receives royal assent.“

Thank you.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I have a point I want to raise with the committee. I'm going to ask essentially that this bill, Bill C-481, which deals with mandatory retirement, not proceed to clause-by-clause consideration today. I'm going to ask the committee to consider tabling it, because a number of witnesses, particularly FETCO, the Chamber of Commerce, and the pilots association, have raised what they have said are matters of considerable concern to them.

FETCO, particularly, when talking about pensions and benefits, said that they would like to have seen an amendment that would allow age differentiation with respect to what those who might continue working past a certain age would have to face with respect to how much they might pay to get into the pension, whether they would get moneys back at a different level, and whether they would be entitled to some of the benefit plans, whether it's medical, drugs, or whatever. They felt that this was an important exemption. They also mentioned that they would have liked to have seen an exemption that provided for more rigorous testing and so on as the age increases.

The pilots association has said that in the collective bargaining agreements that have been entered into, they've made some agreements between the pilots--the young and the old pilots--whereby all of them agreed that these would be the rules of the game. Essentially, younger pilots have to stay at the lower pay grade until they reach a certain age, and then they receive higher pay, more benefits, more privileges, and so on. They've indicated quite strongly that if you remove the mandatory retirement age altogether, what would happen is that the younger fellows who have been in the system and in the collective bargaining agreement would not be able to--

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

We're ready to begin the second part of our meeting.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, December 6, 2010, we are now looking at Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age).

We are proceeding to clause-by-clause consideration.

(On clause 1)

I will at this time call the first clause.

Go ahead, Mr. Komarnicki.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

To answer your question, we have until April 14 to get to Bill C-304 and report it back to the House.

We have so much to do, but that's why we have a work plan. Part of our problem is that we keep getting off our work plan, because we're quite reactive and I think we need to be proactive. I think we have a good work plan set until the Thursday after we get back from break. After that, there's nothing scheduled, so that's when we can finish Bill C-304. I would think we could finish Bill C-481. We also have an invitation out to the minister to come. Then we would also begin the disability study.

I think rather than being too reactive on some of these things, let's stick to our plan. It's amazing how we can actually get some things done if we do.

I hear you, Mr. Martin. We have a motion right now that we have to deal with. We're almost finished our time. Let's deal with the motion. Then I can get a consensus and we can maybe begin half an hour earlier on Thursday and at least see if we can discuss this and then finalize our plan. I'm not saying that we can get to Bill C-304 on Thursday, but we can decide what date we will look at Bill C-304 and what we will do after Mr. Lessard's study, unless Mr. Lessard is willing to give up that study. But I know that he was very adamant that he wanted to get to that, and that was what we had all agreed to.

Right now we're looking at March 3 to resume. That was the date you were looking at. Did you want to keep that date?

We are just about out of time. We do have a list of speakers.

Go ahead, Mr. Vellacott.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you for the opportunity to make my case here.

I'm in agreement with the motion by both Mr. Komarnicki and Madame Folco on Bill C-481.

I guess I'm looking for some advice from the clerk as to what a reference from the Speaker means in terms of the order of business of the committee.

We had a reference, before Christmas, of Bill C-304. We're very close to getting it done. If we put it on the agenda for Thursday, I think we could get at least that piece of business out of the way and get it back into the House, where it can be dealt with in a more fulsome fashion. Then we would have lived up to our responsibility here to respond to that kind of reference and to make sure that it in fact happened.

We have a whole bunch of things hanging out there now. The biggest priority for me, and at one point for this committee, is Bill C-304. At a meeting a week ago, we suggested--I believe it was Mr. Lessard--that we take half an hour before our regular meeting at some point. I thought that was going to happen over the last week or so. It didn't happen, even though I thought we had unanimous consent to in fact do that.

If we could get to Bill C-304 at some point on Thursday, I think we would be living up to our responsibility here of responding to the Speaker's referral of this very important matter to our committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

All right. Right now we're dealing with your amendment, which would say that the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-481 be tabled and would resume on March 3.

Yes, Mr. Vellacott.

[Capt Paul Strachan, President, Air Canada Pilots Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's our pleasure to be here today.

Members of the committee, it's nice to see you.

We're here, obviously, to speak to an important contemplated piece of public policy, which is Bill C-481. We support the intent of the bill insofar as it seeks to defend individuals from arbitrary or discriminatory practices, specifically termination of employment by virtue of age.

This is obviously a noble cause, and specific to our case, we agree that paragraph 15(1)(c) is too broad a provision of the Canadian Human Rights Act, because in our instance, there are some 3,000 Air Canada pilots, making up more than half the airline pilots in the country. So we could then unilaterally or de facto set a normal age of retirement for people in similar positions. If under the act that serves as justification for a different employer to terminate the employment of an individual who does not have the benefit of the robust collective agreement and pension provisions that our members do, then it is clearly not appropriate.

So while we agree that paragraph 15(1)(c) is too broad, we must implore the committee to consider careful exceptions to this bill for fear that this bill also is too broad. It's the role of Parliament to protect human rights, but we don't talk specifically here about individual rights. We're talking about human rights in the broad sense, and that includes collective rights of the members of an organization such as our own. So Parliament's task then is to find a balance between those rights that properly protects the interests of all.

Our members have negotiated, as I said, a robust collective agreement, of which its pension plan forms part. Our pension plan is a very generous one. It goes to the limits of the Pension Act and the Income Tax Act and then beyond. We have a supplementary employee retirement plan, and in fact incorporate a retirement compensation agreement into the overall scheme as well, so that the vast majority of our members expect to retire from their employment at Air Canada with a pension that places them still in the top 1% of income earners in the country, with pensions of six figures in the vast majority of cases.

Insofar as Parliament may seek to protect the rights of the individual, you must be cognizant of the fact that you will necessarily impact the collective rights of our 3,000 professionals, who have told us, by a margin of almost 85%, that they favour the current ability to retire at their negotiated age of retirement, which is 60.

Concomitant with our pension provisions, which I say are very generous, we have a true deferred wage scheme, and by that I mean we have a ladder of progression on our wage scale that starts very low--artificially low--in the early years of employment and ramps up over the course of one's career to in fact overpayment in the final years, which allows our members to maximize their retirement earnings, because their final average earnings, their FAE, are calculated on the basis of those five final years.

If you stall the progression up the ladder, it stagnates for some period of time, and the transfer of wealth that occurs is significant. Not only is a member now stagnating at some lower level on the ladder, but unless you're in the top 15% approximately, unless you've achieved your highest progression expected up that ladder at the point of stagnation, you will lose to some degree. In the case of our most junior members, the transfer of wealth is measured in seven figures, because not only are they suffering from the lack of progression in their income during the period of stagnation, but they lose the time value of that money and can never recover. So insofar as you're allowing those few individuals who might like to change the rules and stay longer, you're now impacting the rights of all those other members, because now you're forcing them to stay longer if they want to equalize their career potential and expected earnings, but you're also taking away the time value of that money forever. It's a zero-sum game, so you need to be very careful that this bill does not create unintended consequences.

So it's for that reason that we propose an amendment to this bill. Rather than strike paragraph 15(1)(c) from the Canadian Human Rights Act, it would be more thoughtful and appropriate to amend it to allow for specific exceptions such as in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.

Our proposal would be, then, that paragraph 15(1)(c) be amended to read that it is not a discriminatory practice if the termination of employment or refusal to employ is because of the terms or conditions of a bona fide retirement or pension plan, and that this is justifiable and balances the rights of the individual with the collective rights of a very large group of people.

Thank you.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne]

Thank you, Mr. Komarnicki.

Essentially, we've recommended amendments in three areas. The first would be to explicitly permit federally regulated employers to apply mandatory retirement when there is an issue of risk to the safety of the public and/or other workers. The second area is to allow employers to continue to treat employees differently, based on their age, for the purposes of pension and benefits. The third area is to revise the proposed amendment that Bill C-481 proposes to the Canada Labour Code to explicitly state that in cases in which an employee is involuntarily terminated due to safety concerns and is eligible to receive a pension, no severance would be paid.

Those are the three areas. We'd be happy to submit that.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

You're not challenging it, Madam Cluff-Clyburne, but my impression is you're giving it a slow death. Either you're discriminating or you're not discriminating. It can't be black, white, and café au lait. It has to be one or the other.

This bill, C-481, says there is discrimination. If there is discrimination against one group, then all the people within that group have to be affected by Bill C-481. This is where I take exception to the amendments you proposed to this committee.

It seems to me, and I'm not an expert, that when you talk about discrimination you must include all the members within a particular group who have identical characteristics. From the time you withdraw one group and say, well, they're not being discriminated against even though they're under the same exceptions, then you're not respecting what Bill C-481 is trying to put forward.

[Susan Eng, Vice-President, Advocacy, Canadian Association of Retired Persons]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for having me here today.

CARP is a national, non-profit, non-partisan organization with 300,000 members across the country in 41 chapters. We advocate for social change that will improve the quality of life for all of us as we age. Our advocacy covers financial and retirement security; equitable access to health care; and such human rights issues as freedom from elder abuse, ageism in the media, and age discrimination, especially in the workplace.

Consequently, we appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee to voice our support for Bill C-481 and to encourage Parliament, through this committee, to expedite passage of the bill.

Bill C-481 will remove paragraph 15(1)(c) from the Canadian Human Rights Act. We believe this provision amounts to legislated age discrimination, and the courts have found it to be contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Federal Court has said that paragraph 15(1)(c) has “the effect of perpetuating the group disadvantage and prejudice faced by older workers” by promoting “the stereotypical view that older workers are less capable, or are less deserving of recognition or value as human beings or as members of Canadian society”.

CARP has pursued the elimination of mandatory retirement over the years and has worked with various provincial jurisdictions to repeal the equivalent provision in their own human rights codes. At this point, every Canadian jurisdiction has so eliminated--except for the federal jurisdiction. In the federal jurisdiction, an estimated 840,000 employees across the country are still subject to mandatory retirement because of the operation of paragraph 15(1)(c). The federal government is the last jurisdiction in Canada to hold onto legislated age discrimination.

As a public interest advocacy organization, we try to ensure that we fairly represent the views of our membership. We do our best to keep them up to date on various developments so that their views are in fact well-informed. We communicate with our members through our magazine, through the website, and increasingly through an e-newsletter that reaches some 85,000 opt-in subscribers. We've kept them up to date on the progress of a number of issues, including this one and the Air Canada pilots case.

Even more instructive is the polling that we're able to conduct. We seldom get fewer than 1,500 responses, and generally get 3,000 to 5,000 responses. I've provided you with the results of two recent polls. You will have that in your materials. One result we issued just this Friday, and I'll give you the conclusions of that poll.

This is what the CARP members wanted this committee to hear from them. CARP members are solidly in favour of passing Bill C-481 immediately. They see it as legislated workplace discrimination against Canadians who must work. Fully one half say that they will not vote for their own party if it blocks passage of the bill, and the vast majority say that no Canadians should have to go through the experience of the recently reinstated Air Canada pilots.

Add to that the fact that older Canadians are the most engaged and consistent voters--70% of those over age 60 vote regularly--and you have a message from your most loyal but vigilant constituents that should not be ignored.

We've called on the federal government over the years to remove paragraph 15(1)(c). Most recently, CARP's call to the parties to act in the wake of the August 2009 decision in Vilven and Kelly supports the introduction of Bill C-481.

In the absence of parliamentary action, the courts have ruled that the section violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as it denies equal protection and equal benefit of the law to workers over their normal retirement age. As a result of these decisions, and after seven years of costly litigation, two airline pilots were recently reinstated with full seniority. They appeared before you last week.

In coming to these conclusions, the courts have done what Parliament has failed to do, and that is to invalidate legislated age discrimination. However, because the rulings apply only to the individuals before the courts, it means that any other pilot, or indeed any other Canadian, has to go through a similarly arduous process in order to assert his or her right to keep working.

The courts have also made it clear that legislated age discrimination has no place in today's society. I've included some quotes on that in the material here.

The recently released Federal Court decision from just two weeks ago, February 3, unreservedly found that the section was not reasonably justified “in a free and democratic society” under section 1 of the charter. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that each of the nearly 200 cases now before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal will be decided in the same manner. However, because of the failure of Parliament to act, you will waste many more millions of tax dollars in order to see that these people will go through the same process over again.

If my time is up, I will conclude that this is an important time for Parliament to act. It's a time to show some leadership.

Thank you very much.

[Susanna Cluff-Clyburne, Director, Parliamentary Relations, Canadian Chamber of Commerce]

Absolutely, and thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

The Canadian Chamber, as you probably know, represents businesses of every size in every region of the country. We count amongst our members several federally regulated employers in the communications, financial services, and transportation sectors.

Last fall the Canadian Chamber of Commerce released a policy paper entitled “Canada's Demographic Crunch: Can Underrepresented Workers Save Us?” In that paper we called upon the federal government to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to eliminate mandatory retirement for persons aged 65 and older. This recommendation recognizes the reality that Canada is undergoing a major demographic shift. Canada's population and its workforce are aging. Last year nearly all growth in the labour force stemmed from immigration. Some business sectors indicate they are facing shortages of the skilled people they need to remain competitive and to grow. Canada's businesses are concerned that these shortages will continue as more baby boomers reach traditional retirement age.

What must Canada do to ensure it has sufficient skilled people to replenish its workforce? While many look, quite rightly, to immigration as an answer, we need to look at the potential of our homegrown human resources as well. We need to provide more opportunities for those Canadians who are underrepresented in our workforce. These include older workers, our aboriginal peoples, and peoples with disabilities.

In light of our shrinking workforce, arbitrarily fixing a retirement age is unwise. The mandatory retirement age of 65 hearkens from another era. Things have changed. People live longer, healthier lives, and many wish and/or need to work past what has been considered the traditional retirement age. Older workers have a wealth of skills, knowledge, and experience, which are tremendous assets for a business in a country facing a labour supply crunch in their day-to-day operations and in the transferring of human capital and knowledge to younger workers.

Progress has been made to encourage older workers to stay in the labour force, and efforts must continue to remove any stigmas and institutional deterrents to the continued participation of older Canadians in the workforce. Most federally regulated employers no longer impose a mandatory retirement age, and the provinces and territories have implemented legislation to eliminate it. We urge the federal government to follow suit.

That said, just as arbitrarily setting a mandatory retirement age is outdated and economically unwise, arbitrarily allowing anyone at any age to perform any occupation is equally so. Therefore, in our recommendation to the federal government in last fall's report, we also said that employers need to have the flexibility to maintain occupational requirements based on age that exist for safety reasons. Federally regulated employers provide essential services to Canadians. Their needs and those of their employees are very different. Therefore, the laws and regulations governing the relationships need to be flexible enough to protect their respective rights and serve Canadians safely and effectively.

We recommend that Bill C-481 be amended to explicitly permit federally regulated employers to apply mandatory retirement ages in specific occupations associated with a risk to the safety of the public and/or other workers. As you have heard from other witnesses, many pension, benefit, and insurance plans are based upon the traditional retirement age of 65. We also recommend that Bill C-481 be amended to explicitly allow employers to continue to treat employees differently based on their age for pension and benefit plans. This would recognize the potential for the added cost to employers of providing these benefits to older workers and is consistent with the approach taken by the provinces and territories. Bill C-481 also needs to be amended to explicitly state that where an employee is involuntarily terminated due to safety concerns and is eligible to receive a pension, no severance is payable. The change Bill C-481 proposes making to the Canada Labour Code leaves this open to interpretation.

Employers will need time to modify their business practices to accommodate any changes resulting from the passage of Bill C-481. Therefore, should Bill C-481 become law, we propose a coming into force date of no less than two years following royal assent.

In conclusion, the federally regulated members of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce agree that the time has come to eliminate mandatory retirement. However, any legislative changes and supporting regulations must explicitly enable these employers to manage their businesses and employee relationships in a manner that ensures that they can continue to serve Canadians safely and efficiently.

Thank you.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good morning, everyone.

I'd like to call this meeting to order. This is meeting number 44 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Pursuant to orders of the day, we are looking at Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age).

We have witnesses with us for the first 45 minutes. After that 45 minutes we will have a new set of witnesses, and following that we will be looking at the bill clause by clause. So we do have a very aggressive agenda today.

We are very happy to have with us today Seamus Cox from the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission. From the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, we have Susan Eng, vice-president, and Michael Nicin, government relations. As well we have a representative from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Susanna Cluff-Clyburne, who is the director of parliamentary relations. Thank you all for being here.

I would ask each one of the organizations to take five minutes for their presentation. I apologize for the short amount of time, but that will give us time for questions and answers.

I will begin with the Chamber of Commerce. Would you please begin with your five-minute presentation?

Thank you.

[John Farrell]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

FETCO represents approximately 586,000 employees in the federal jurisdiction.

First and foremost, FETCO members support the principle of removing the provision in the Canadian Human Rights Act that permits mandatory retirement. The time has come. The provinces have adopted this principle in their human rights legislation and regulations. Indeed, most companies in the federal jurisdiction that are members of FETCO have already adopted the principle that employees may work beyond age 65.

We are here today fundamentally to assist the Government of Canada in crafting new legislation and regulations that will address the complexities of changing from the current regime to a new regime. Our objective here is to end up with better legislation that will stand the test of time and address issues appropriately.

The federal sector includes interprovincial and international transport undertakings such as airlines, air traffic control, shipping, railways, and trucking, in which the nature of work performed raises concerns regarding significant risks to public safety.

Repealing the provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act that allow mandatory retirement will remove an important mechanism that has been available to federal employers to manage some older workers with dignity with regard to diminishing performance resulting from advancing age. The management challenges presented by older workers, particularly in safety-sensitive workplaces, will remain and cannot simply be ignored. FETCO is concerned that Bill C-481 fails to provide any guidance or assistance to employers in respect of these significant management challenges.

We are suggesting two policy options. First, employers should be permitted to apply reasonable mandatory retirement ages in certain circumstances and only in specific occupations where the performance of work is associated with a high risk to public safety and the safety of other workers.

Second, a provision should be included in the CHRA that stipulates that it is not a discriminatory practice on the basis of age for an employer to impose periodic skills and competency testing on employees in safety-sensitive positions after they have reached a certain age.

This targeted approach would reduce a potentially significant burden on employers and would not interfere with employees' equality rights. Indeed, in some industries, such as the trucking industries, medical examinations for drivers over age 65 are required on an annual basis. We heard earlier that there are specific arrangements that are required in the airline industry.

Now we want to address issues with respect to the effect of removal of mandatory retirement on pensions and benefit plans.

Regarding pensions, Bill C-481 does not address how the elimination of mandatory retirement will be reconciled with pension plans that are designed to be integrated with the Canada Pension Plan, a practical problem we have to deal with.

Bill C-481 does not contemplate how the elimination of mandatory retirement will affect the ongoing transition in many workplaces to systems of phased retirement that allow employees to access earned pension benefits while they also continue to accrue pension benefits as a result of a change in employment status.

Turning to benefits now, Bill C-481 fails to address how benefits and insurance programs will be treated if mandatory retirement policies are prohibited. Various provinces, such as British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, have enacted specific exceptions that allow employers to continue to differentiate between employees on the basis of age in the administration of employee pensions, benefits, and insurance plans.

These legislative exceptions address the legitimate concerns of employers that the cost of financing certain employee benefits and/or insurance plans will increase in respect of older employees who choose to continue working beyond the so-called normal retirement age.

It is FETCO's position that Parliament must address the similar legitimate concerns of employers in the federal jurisdiction regarding benefits such as life insurance and extended health care, for which costs increase substantially with age, and disability benefits, for which costs increase dramatically as a result of increases in the duration of benefit and the frequency of claims.

FETCO notes that, in its current form, Bill C-481 will impact the Canadian human rights benefit regulations.

We must say that if you take a look at those regulations as they currently exist, they apply to a different regime, which is going away. So there is a great deal of work that needs to be done by the Government of Canada to consider rewriting regulations that will suit new legislation, and we employers want to be part of that process so that we end up with proper regulations that will stand the test of time.

Finally, removal of mandatory retirement could materially affect federal employers' costs of workers compensation benefits, which is another problem. These benefits are administered by the provinces on behalf of federally regulated employers. There is no doubt that as employees get older, the cost of workers compensation benefits will increase. The probability of injury will increase, and the probability that an employee will not be able to return to work and recover from an injury, because he or she is older, will increase. We have to find a way to balance increasing age with workers compensation regimes managed by the provinces. It's a very real, practical problem.

With respect to severance pay, FETCO is concerned that Bill C-481 adds unnecessary ambiguity to the severance provisions of the Canada Labour Code. We're not satisfied that the way you're dealing with this provision is technically clear enough to prevent problems from occurring.

First, section 235 of the Canada Labour Code should make it clear that any employee who voluntarily decides to retire and thereby terminates the employment relationship is not entitled to statutory severance. The existing provisions don't necessarily allow people to see that immediately.

Second, FETCO believes that federal employers should be entitled to continue to impose reasonable mandatory retirement ages where there is a significant risk to public safety arising from a particular occupation. In cases where a legitimate mandatory retirement age is in place and an employee retires with pension benefits upon reaching that age, FETCO's position is that the employer should continue to be relieved of the statutory severance obligation.

What are our conclusions? FETCO supports the Government of Canada's initiative, but it needs to be accompanied by legislative exceptions that continue to allow reasonable age-based retirement policies in some limited circumstances. Specifically, and further, FETCO—

[David Langtry, Acting Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission]

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the standing committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee as you review Bill C-481. As the chair noted, with me is Mr. Philippe Dufresne, our Director of Litigation and Senior Counsel.

Requiring people to retire at a specified age is discrimination. The Canadian Human Rights Commission has called for repeal of the mandatory retirement provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Act since 1979, just one year after the commission opened its doors. Back in 1979, the commission's opinion was held by a minority. As recently as the 1990s, the Supreme Court ruled that although mandatory retirement was discriminatory, it was a permissible limit under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The commission is aware of the rationale of the court at that time. Job progression, safety and pensions were, and still are, important. However, the commission maintains that these can be accommodated without perpetuating a discriminatory practice.

All Canadian jurisdictions, with the exception of the federal jurisdiction and, in a limited way, New Brunswick, have abolished mandatory retirement. Over the years, many federally regulated employers in the federal public service abolished it on their own initiative.

There is no evidence of any significant detrimental impact on employers, pensions, safety, or job progression.

Turning 65, or any other age, does not make someone less qualified to work. In our view, the qualifications of the person measured against the requirements of a job should be the relevant criteria in determining whether someone should be employed.

There are legitimate concerns about the impact of abolishing mandatory retirement in safety-sensitive occupations. Some may ask whether a 75-year-old pilot should be flying a plane. I suggest that this is the wrong question. The real question is whether the pilot is fit to fly the plane. The ability of a pilot may be impacted by a variety of factors unrelated to age, such as lack of sleep, stress, or medical conditions.

From a human rights perspective, what is required is an individualized assessment aimed at determining the ability of individuals to perform the requirements of their job. This should apply regardless of a person's age.

In some circumstances, a job requirement based on a prohibited ground of discrimination may be essential to the performance of the job. The Canadian Human Rights Act provides for the defence of a bona fide occupational requirement, or BFOR , in these cases. For example, bus drivers are required to have good vision. Although this requirement discriminates against people who are visually impaired, it is an acceptable form of discrimination in this occupation.

The act sets out that an employer seeking to prove a BFOR must also be able to show that accommodating people who do not meet the job requirement would impose an undue hardship, taking into consideration cost, health, and safety. As a result, should Bill C-481 be enacted, an upper age limit in specific job situations could be considered non-discriminatory if an employer is able to argue a BFOR.

You, of course, have already heard about the Air Canada pilots cases from the previous witnesses. The cases illustrate how a BFOR works. The Federal Court upheld the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal's finding that the mandatory retirement defence in the Canadian Human Rights Act was inconsistent with the charter. At the same time, the Federal Court sent the case back to the tribunal for a re-determination of whether Air Canada's age requirement was a bona fide occupational requirement for its pilots.

It is important to mention that mandatory retirement is not just about age. It has a disproportionate impact on certain groups in Canadian society. For example, women who have accumulated fewer years of work, or delayed their higher education due to child rearing, are particularly disadvantaged by mandatory retirement. Likewise, new Canadians and people with disabilities may be more disadvantaged by being forced to retire.

These were among the factors considered by the Federal Court in the Air Canada case, and were cited as elements in support of the Court's conclusion that the mandatory retirement defence in the Canadian Human Rights Act is not justified.

The commission supports this bill, and we thank you for the opportunity to be here to express that support.

We would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair (Ms. Candice Hoeppner (Portage—Lisgar, CPC)), Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to call our meeting to order.

We are beginning meeting number 43 of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Our orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Monday, December 6, 2010. We are studying Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age).

We are very pleased to have three witnesses with us today, two of whom are in the committee room with us. One witness is via video conference from Vancouver, B.C.

Today we are welcoming Mr. Robert Neil Kelly, who is part of Fly Past 60 Coalition, and George Vilven, who is also with the same organization.

Welcome, gentlemen.

We also welcome Jonathan Kesselman, a professor with the School of Public Policy at Simon Fraser University.

Thank you for being here as well, Professor.

Each one of you will have approximately seven minutes for a presentation. After all of your presentations are complete, we will then go to questions from the committee members.

We will begin today with Mr. Kelly. If you will begin, we'd love to hear from you.

Canadian Human Rights Act

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege for me to speak in Parliament to represent the voters of Laval—Les Îles, and I am honoured by the confidence they have in me to defend their interests in Ottawa.

It is a commitment I take very seriously as a legislator in the duties I perform each day on their behalf, and by extension, on behalf of all the residents of Canada, regardless of the province, of the race, of the ethnicity and, in this case, of their age. There should be no distinction. Upholding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on their behalf is part of our commitment.

I wish to thank my hon. colleagues for giving me the opportunity to present and discuss Bill C-481.

First, I would like to recognize my colleague, the member of Parliament for Edmonton East, Alberta, for his generosity in giving me the opportunity to complete the second hour of debate today instead of next February. I also thank my distinguished colleague, the member for Souris—Moose Mountain, Saskatchewan, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour for his thoughtful and reasoned remarks and support.

I want to assure the parliamentary secretary that the amendments he proposed and other amendments proposed on behalf of the government will be carefully reviewed. They certainly have merit. I hope that our discussions and potential amendments will be perceived as amicable when the time comes in committee. If so, this important and highly anticipated piece of legislation could be passed quickly. I want the parliamentary secretary to know that the current wording of paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act was not the main problem raised by the tribunal or as part of the Federal Court judicial review.

Nonetheless, as we looked at what other legislative measures may be needed, this clause was raised as an appendage that might no longer be needed. However, his points are well taken with respect to the military.

I would like to take this opportunity to correct a few myths about mandatory retirement.

People across Canada are working well past the age of 65 in 2010. Even though some 400,000 Canadians aged 50 to 75 indicated in the Statistics Canada survey that they had previously retired, 58% of males had returned to work, with 32% returning because of financial reasons, the second most important reason.

The bill would impact only about 10% of the Canadian workforce. These are federally-regulated private sector organizations. They include scientists and engineers, as well as the railway, for example.

I want to remind hon. members of McKinney v. the University of Guelph in 1990. At the time, the Supreme Court ruled that paragraph 9(a) of the Ontario Human Rights Code, which limited protection under the code to people between 18 and 65, violated section 15 of the Charter, but was saved by section 1. Why? Because that was the norm.

The irony is that the judges who heard the professor's case and other similar cases were over 60.

It is therefore incorrect to believe that everyone continues to work by choice.

We can fast forward 16 years. The Ontario legislature, the legislature of my province of Quebec and all other provincial and territorial legislatures of this land have abolished mandatory retirement in their human rights codes.

I wish to make one last point on this.

The important thing, as one of the Supreme Court justices said in 1999 in Tawney Meiorin, is this:

Recognition of the equality of each individual must be built into workplace standards. These requirements apply even in the context of unionized workplaces.

Many people told me stories about their professional and personal lives when they found out that I was going to introduce this bill. It is clear that this bill is timely and that it will be useful and necessary for the target population.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment le député pour Laval—Les Îles for this timely and important piece of legislation. I was very pleased to second this private member's bill because of its importance and timeliness.

I would like to start with a bit of my personal background that has led to my strong support for ending mandatory retirement.

Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age) would bring Canada more into line with other countries and with the provinces and territories. My personal link to this legislation is through my mother Charlotte Murray. Charlotte went back to university when she had three children. Like many women, she entered her career and discovered her passion as an architect in mid-life, as a mature student. She graduated as an architect and went on to do her master's degree in architecture, and became a partner in a very well reputed firm in Vancouver. Charlotte retired at age 75.

In the last seven years of her career she was the lead architect for a major restoration renovation of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. It was the strength of her experience over those many years and her wisdom as an elder in society that allowed her to help the cathedral navigate through the complexities of a restoration process. She brought into the conversation those who felt there should be no change and those who felt there needed to be change, those who were supported by the cathedral through its compassionate programs and the many people who had ideas and interests in this project. As a well-respected and experienced heritage restoration architect, Charlotte Murray was able to steward this project through to a successful conclusion, and I will add that it was award winning. I am very proud of this project that my mother accomplished.

Had there been mandatory retirement in the private sector, which there was not, she would have had to give away her seal as an architect and not undertake projects like that in the last 10 years of her career. This is an example of how the requirement to retire due to age is discriminatory.

To enable people to work, if they are interested in doing so and able to contribute, is important on an individual basis and also on a collective basis for our society. It gives individuals a choice. It is also a compassionate option, especially in cases involving new Canadians or women and others who may have entered their careers later in life. These individuals are still getting fulfilment from their jobs and they are still interested in contributing to society. They may also need the income and the building of their pension program beyond the age of 60 or 65. It is a choice and a compassionate choice for individuals.

However, it also is an important policy and legislation to contribute to societal benefit. As a society we need to draw on the strengths of all those who have something to contribute. Our elders, especially, have a richness of experience and a richness of wisdom from which society can benefit. To ask those people who would like to continue to contribute through the workplace to step aside and stay home would not benefit society.

I have another connection with this legislation that I would like to mention.

Having been a member of the legislative assembly in British Columbia, I identified mandatory retirement as an issue in provincial legislation and brought it forward for examination by my riding association as a potential policy to put forward to the provincial convention. This was in about 2003 or 2004.

I engaged the attorney general of the day in some conversations about what it would take to end mandatory retirement in British Columbia. That policy of ending mandatory retirement was adopted by the provincial B.C. Liberal Party and went on to become law on January 1, 2008. I felt strongly about that in my provincial career. I was able to nudge things forward there, and I am very pleased to support the legislation today.

The last personal link I will mention is this. As the minister responsible for the B.C. public service agency earlier in my political career, it was clear that the gaps being left by the retirees in the public service would be hard to fill. A very large percentage of the civil service in British Columbia would be eligible to retire within the next five to ten years, taking with them all that wealth of experience and dedication to the public and public service. That group was not affected by mandatory retirement, but it highlighted the need for society to find all the ways possible to enable those people who wanted to continue to contribute past a certain age to do so. I worked with the deputy minister to find ways that we could draw people back into contributing to British Columbians.

I understand that only 2% of federally-regulated organizations are subject to mandatory retirement. However, that is still a lot of people when we think about the individual lives that can be touched by being forced to retire well ahead of where one feels still able and interested in contributing. That would be about 12,000 organizations of 840,000 people who are subject potentially to mandatory retirement provisions now and who would be freed from that with this legislation. Approximately 17,000 people are affected by this and could be freed from those restrictions.

We know that not everyone will want to continue working past the age that they are currently under a mandatory retirement provision. If it is like the general public, perhaps 10% or 12% of these 17,000 people would chose not to retire when they otherwise would have been forced to so. That is a large number of people for whom we could help make a compassionate choice, those who may need to continue to boost their pensions or may need to continue to have a paycheque. Perhaps they went into the workforce, as did my mother, in their thirties or early forties, and are just on a roll at the time that they are subject to mandatory retirement.

With demographic changes in our society, which was part of what I was experiencing with the B.C. public service agency, fewer young people are coming into the workforce, which is a potential disconnect between the jobs of the future and the competencies that people will have to hold those jobs. Any small or large measures we can consider would be important to address the potential skills shortages in the future.

It is important for members of Parliament to think not only about the individual compassionate good, but also the collective good. In my view, this is an important policy that addresses both of those aspects of good public policy. Therefore, I am pleased to support it.

Once again, I congratulate the member of Parliament for Laval—Les Îles for her initiative in bringing this forward.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to the bill before us today, Bill C-481, introduced by the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles.

This bill would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code to eliminate the provisions that allow federally regulated employers to set a mandatory retirement age as an exception to the general rule prohibiting discrimination on the basis of age.

I am happy to say that I am in favour of doing away with mandatory retirement. However, for the reasons I will mention in my speech, I believe that this bill, as it currently stands, is much too broad.

However, I would first like to talk about our commitment to supporting Canadian seniors. As members already know, our government is working very hard to improve the lives of seniors in many ways. We created the position of minister of state for seniors. This is to bring the concerns of older Canadians to the cabinet table and to stand on their behalf. In 2007, we created the National Seniors Council to provide advice to the federal government on matters related to the well-being and quality of life of seniors. This year, one of the priorities of the National Seniors Council is labour force participation among seniors and near seniors.

More recently, we increased funding for the targeted initiative for older workers to assist unemployed older workers in vulnerable communities to retrain. This is a five-year, $220 million cost-shared initiative with the provincial and territorial governments. This shows our government's desire to encourage older workers to continue to contribute to the Canadian economy.

The legislative provisions allowing for mandatory retirement policies, which this bill would repeal, were written more than 30 years ago, at a time when mandatory retirement was both routine and part of our economic reality. In addition to many other stereotypes that have now been eliminated, there were often stereotypes about older workers. Thirty years ago, some people assumed that older workers could not do the job, that they were closed to new ideas or that they were not motivated to work because of their pension. It was assumed that younger workers should take their place.

Times have clearly changed. Today, average life expectancy is six years more than it was in 1977. Some people feel that they should be in the workforce longer and save more because they will be retired longer than they would have been in the past. Some people also want the freedom to take time off work or put their career on hold to raise children or take care of other family members. These people may want to retire later in life so that they can save more or acquire more pensionable years of service. And, despite progress in this area, women are largely affected by this issue.

Many people are staying in school longer than they were 30 years ago; as a result, they may join the labour force later. These people may also want to delay retirement.

We need to recognize that many people enjoy their work and gain a sense of personal satisfaction from it. Some people may want to retire early for any number of reasons; others do not. People should be able to choose when they want to retire based on their lifestyle, finances, health and priorities, as long as there are no compelling reasons to keep them from doing so.

At the same time, there are some real concerns that we need to consider if we intend to change the law. In some cases, employers may be completely justified in having a mandatory retirement policy, and the law should allow them to do so.

As written, the bill would repeal paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which authorizes mandatory retirement once an individual reaches the maximum age provided for by law or regulation. The bill goes a little too far. There may be cases in which it is necessary to pass a bill or regulations to set a maximum retirement age. One example that comes to mind is the Canadian Forces.

For a number of reasons, the Canadian Forces are a unique employer.

First, the Canadian Forces have to respect the principle of universality of service. Every time the Canadian Forces take part in international or national operations, including armed conflict, each member of the Canadian Forces must at all times and under any circumstances perform any functions that they may be required to perform other than the duties of their occupational specification. This includes the obligation to carry out military duties, such as combat, under extremely dangerous circumstances. Other federal government employees or members of the general public are not required to carry out this important duty.

This unique characteristic of the Canadian Forces requires a special approach to human resource management. To maintain a homogeneous and effective combat force, the Canadian Forces must have a mandatory retirement age to ensure a steady supply of personnel with the knowledge and experience required at each level. Fighter pilots, submariners and tank commanders cannot just be hired overnight. These people must devote many years to mastering their occupations within the Canadian Forces structure. These are the men and women we are counting on to become the future leaders of our Canadian Forces.

The Canadian Forces cannot maintain their international reputation for skills and excellence unless they continue receiving training that surpasses the minimum standard.

The Canadian Forces are a small force whose numbers are subject to a finite limit. Our armed forces cannot afford the luxury of maintaining individuals on active duty until their voluntary release, which would be decided by each member. This would lead directly to stagnation and have an impact on the effectiveness of the Canadian Forces in protecting Canada, its values and its interests.

If the Canadian Forces cannot maintain a mandatory retirement age, they could face serious financial and operational difficulties.

The Canadian Forces are unique in that they pay for all medical care for their personnel directly out of the departmental budget. An aging workforce within the Canadian Forces would increase the demands on available resources, which would in turn leave fewer funds available to properly carry out the forces' operational responsibilities.

That is why it is very important to ensure that the retirement age may be fixed by regulation under the authority of paragraph 15(1)(b).

This authority could also be useful in other cases, particularly in industries that are subject to international rules governing the maximum age for carrying out certain duties.

Furthermore, these policies are often negotiated as part of collective agreements and are sometimes linked to pension arrangements. Employers and unions will need some time to renegotiate these provisions and to make the appropriate changes to pension plans. Some employers will need time to determine whether they have sufficient information to impose a mandatory retirement age as a bona fide occupational requirement.

That is why it is very important to establish coming into force provisions; otherwise, making such a significant change without allowing employers and unions enough time to adjust could create some undesirable situations.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me the opportunity to speak to this matter. The question of mandatory retirement is both important and complex. I am proud of the work our government has done to support older Canadians.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age), as introduced by my hon. colleague from Laval—Les Îles.

I will begin with some background on why this legislation is important. I will also discuss how the bill deals directly with the Canadian Human Rights Act, how it affects the federally regulated private sector, some safety concerns with the bill, and arguments against banning mandatory retirement. I will also address concerns of one of my constituents who could benefit from the bill.

The bill is designed to prohibit federally regulated employers from setting a mandatory retirement age. Let me begin by providing a bit of background. Currently there are no laws in Canada that require a person to retire at a specific age. As we know, federal civil servants are not obliged to retire when they reach age 65. However, there is an exemption for non-civil servants in the federally regulated sector such as AECL, Air Canada, CN, CMHC, Petro-Canada, et cetera, where mandatory retirement can be a condition of an employment contract, collective agreement or workplace policy.

The Canadian Human Rights Act, CHRA, is designed to protect Canadians from discrimination in many different areas, including age. The act applies to all federally regulated industries employing nearly one million Canadians. The act needs clarity.

Subsection 15(1)(b) protects the employer against allegations of discrimination based on age and years of service. Then subsection 15(1)(c) protects the individual based on age of retirement established for employees working in a similar position. The validity of this provision was challenged by a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision in Vilven and Kelly v. Air Canada. As hon. colleagues know, these two employees were reinstated with full pay and seniority.

Bill C-481 seeks to clarify the provisions in the act that do not allow an individual to file a complaint based on age. This undoubtedly would impact mandatory retirement in collective agreements and in workplace policy.

The bill also amends the Canada Labour Code to provide for payment of severance even if the terminated employee is entitled to a pension. There are no changes to the regulations for public servants as mandatory retirement was removed in 1986.

I realize the issue of safety is important and must be addressed for particular industries. I understand that mandatory testing would need to be conducted to ensure that the individual is still capable of doing the job. For pilots travelling on international routes, there are provisions in place for the countries they land in; however, in most cases it refers only to the captain. For example, there is no reason that the captain could not be the copilot for some of the flights using larger aircraft.

Some would argue that mandatory retirement creates opportunities and job promotions for younger workers. Some unions argue efforts to have benefits between the ages of 60 and 65 would be undermined.

In particular, I would like to address the concerns of a constituent of mine. This constituent contacted my office in August and we have been corresponding with her ever since. This legislation is something that could help her directly. Joan works for a federally regulated company. As she reached, and has passed, the age of 65, unfortunately, her job came under review. The company she works for agreed to extend her employment on a yearly basis subject to one rule, that she not receive sick pay. She has been told that her last day of work will be October 31, 2011. She is not ready to retire and she will be searching for temporary work after that date. She feels vulnerable, and quite frankly, who would not?

The current legislation discriminates against the needs of women who opt out of the workforce to raise their children or those who need to take care of aging parents and have not accumulated enough pension benefits to do so. These are the everyday problems Canadians want us to address with Bill C-481.

While there are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed by eliminating mandatory retirement, we must face some of the realities that affect our labour force, such as retirement savings, pensions, skills and labour shortages.

We all know that the baby boom generation is beginning to retire. This will lead to a lack of qualified labour. Often women and immigrants need to work longer because they may not have accumulated enough pension or savings to retire with dignity. People are living longer and healthier and want to continue to work.

The United States, New Zealand and Australia have eliminated mandatory retirement with no major consequences. It also allows some older workers with seniority to work part-time or to work flexible schedules. The provinces have eliminated mandatory retirement; however, there are provisions for mandatory retirement in jobs where physical ability is a requirement, such as in firefighting and policing. We should also take into account mental ability, particularly as it relates to airline pilots.

It is imperative that we do the right thing for the right reasons in this place. More importantly, it is our responsibility to keep our laws current, effective and adaptable with the times. What was acceptable and commonplace 20 years ago no longer is today.

I would like to reference a specific court case from 1990. I am sure most hon. members are familiar with it.

The case dealt with a professor at the University of Guelph. It was felt that even though the Ontario Human Rights Code violated section 15 of the charter, the code was saved as a result of section 1 of the charter because of the law at the time. In writing for the majority, Justice La Forest pointed out that mandatory retirement does involve a complex balancing of competing interests on which expert opinion is divided. In this regard, the courts should accord legislatures considerable room to manoeuvre in striking a balance. This balance is what the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles seeks to obtain with the passage of her bill.

Research shows and the available workforce evidence suggests that abolition of mandatory retirement is unlikely to have a major impact on the average retirement age or years of work in Canada. Further research shows that two-thirds of elderly workers choose to retire before the age of 65, and that 43% retire before age 60. The average age of retirement for all workers was 61 years in 1999. Of the Canadian population 65 to 69 years of age, 11.8% were active in the labour force in 2001. Immigrants and newcomers can spend more time in the workforce, and need to spend more time in the workforce, to build up their pensions. Employers are better able to plan for their workforce skills replacement. Elementary economic principles show that job displacement only takes place for a short period of time. The average is nine months to a year.

I support this bill. It is something on which we must move forward. Obviously, there are some concerns around safety and labour force impacts that need to be addressed, but I believe they can all be reviewed in committee. I thank the member for her hard work on this file. I will be voting in favour of this bill and I encourage all hon. members to do the same.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-481, a bill that would, among other things, eliminate the exception in the Canadian Human Rights Act that currently allows federal public sector and federally regulated private sector employers to have a mandatory retirement age for their employees.

Currently, only about 10%, or 840,000, of the Canadian workforce is subjected to mandatory retirement, and these individuals work within federally regulated sectors, such as transportation, telecommunications, the postal service and, of course, the armed forces, which we just heard about from the minister a moment ago.

Before going further, I want to make it clear that mandatory retirement provisions do not mean that people are not allowed to work beyond a certain age. Mandatory retirement provisions only apply to a specific workplace or pension plan.

When the government supports the lifting of mandatory retirement, it typically tells us that retirement is increasingly a lifestyle choice, as people are living longer and leading more active lives. Both the Governments of Ontario and Nova Scotia have in the past used similar language in support of the elimination of mandatory retirement rules.

However, we in the NDP know there is much more to the situation than this. It is a very simple argument that we are hearing so far. Saving for retirement has become increasingly difficult for Canadians. One-third of Canadian families have no retirement savings at all and two-thirds of Canadians do not have a company pension plan.

Equally troubling is the situation of those workers who are forced to retire at age 65 only to have to take another job immediately afterward at a fraction of the pay simply because they do not have a proper pension plan.

The NDP believes that older workers should have real retirement choices. For example, I think of the working conditions in the steel mills in my home town of Hamilton, the suffocating heat from the furnaces, the air thick with particulate matter and the long hours drenched in sweat. No one wishes to endure these circumstances any longer than they need to. When workers, such as those, choose to work past age 65, they do not do so because they want to. It is because they must. There is often a mortgage that remains to be paid, or college or university tuition for their children still waiting to be cleared.

For many, the freedom to work past age 65 is fast becoming an obligation to work as long as one is physically able. Eliminating the remaining mandatory retirement rules may be helpful to workers who lack a workplace pension but it will do nothing to guarantee that their income will be adequate. For New Democrats, income adequacy is the issue. We have called for an immediate increase to the GIS to lift seniors currently living in poverty out of it, and for a phased-in long-term doubling of the CPP.

The concern I have with respect to the issues of mandatory retirement is the suspicion that businesses push for it because doing so averts attention away from the inadequacies and inequities of Canada's retirement income system. Allowing people to work longer is for them a substitute for programs that would work to ensure that every Canadian has a solid and secure pension on which to retire. Working longer is, for the business class, what we might call an anti-poverty program for seniors, one that requires no contribution by way of taxes and one that leaves the onus on the individual. In other words, from their perspective, perfect indeed.

Meanwhile, these employees who support banning mandatory retirement do so largely because they are already financially secure and work in non-physically demanding jobs. Let us face it, people are living longer. It makes a certain amount of sense that individuals who hold non-physically demanding jobs and who work in safe and comfortable work environments might want to stay on the job longer than someone who, for instance, works pouring concrete all day.

Many of us here in this august chamber probably feel this way. As the member for Hamilton Mountain recently observed, this place does not exactly have a physical workload. It may be stressful to many but it is different from pouring concrete.

Let us be clear. Working longer is not nor will ever be a substitute for an adequate retirement income system.

We have had a number of debates in the House about the inadequacy of public pensions and the increasing incidence of solvency deficiencies of private pension plans. To date, the government has merely paid lip service to improving these pension systems. While they wait for the government to act, literally thousands of Canadians who have worked hard all their lives and who have played by the rules are finding it impossible to make ends meet on their meagre pension incomes.

Meanwhile, New Democrats have been calling for a suite of substantive reforms to improve the situation. As I mentioned before, we have called for an immediate increase to the guaranteed income supplement to lift all seniors out of poverty and for a phased in long term doubling of the CPP.

We would also like to see Canada's bankruptcy laws amended to ensure unfunded pension liabilities, that is, the moneys that companies promised but failed to contribute to workplace pension plans, are given the same status as unpaid wages and go to the front of the line of creditors for payment during bankruptcy or insolvency proceedings. Bill C-501 is being debated in the industry committee at this time and it is designed to do just this.

New Democrats are also calling for security for workplace pension plans through a mandatory pension insurance program paid for by the pension plan sponsors and guaranteeing pension payouts of up to $2,500 a month in the case of a plan failure, and also a national agency managed by the CPP investment board or a similar body to adopt pension plans of failed companies and continue to take advantage of market conditions and to maximize the payouts.

Members can think of our proposed pension insurance plan as being akin to the deposit insurance required of Canadian banks to guarantee the security of bank accounts for Canadians. The banks pay for that insurance. In this case, pension sponsors would be responsible for purchasing pension insurance to guarantee minimum pension payouts for their plan members.

In recent months, ex-employees of insolvent companies such as Fraser Papers or of course Nortel, while having to endure the indignity of taking a massive haircut to their pensions, have watched their American counterparts who work for the same companies located in the United States have their underfunded pension plans propped up by the United States pension benefits guarantee.

Now many of these pensioners will certainly have to work past 65, but they should not have had to do so simply because their government does not care enough to secure their pensions in a way that the great bastion of free market to the south of us has already done for its workers. A national pension insurance plan would ensure that Canadian pensioners are no longer left in the lurch like this while their American cousins are able to retire with a pension that they had been promised.

Getting back to the specific issue of Bill C-481, at this point let me say that I will be supporting sending the bill to committee. I very much look forward to hearing from Canadians when the bill is dealt with there.

I suspect that once in committee, we will hear from many sincere individuals who wish to continue their professional pursuits. Nevertheless, I still have serious reservations that eliminating mandatory retirement rules is in the interest of the people of my riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek. I believe there should be meaningful and comprehensive reforms to the retirement income system of Canada.

Forcing Canadians to work longer should not be just a way for the government to download some of its pension obligations. Working past 65 should be a real choice, one not driven by the fear of destitution but by the genuine desire to continue with a rewarding work life.

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to debate Bill C-481, which was introduced by the hon. member for Laval—Les Îles.

The proposed legislation seeks to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Canadian Human Rights Act to prohibit federally-regulated employers from setting a mandatory retirement age.

I believe there is a lot of merit in pursuing what is proposed in Bill C-481. Specifically, I would support the elimination of exceptions set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act that allow the setting of mandatory retirement ages. I would also be prepared to support the bill's proposal to amend the Canada Labour Code to remove the provision that denies employees' severance pay upon involuntary termination if they are entitled to a pension.

While I can support the intention of Bill C-481, there are a few flaws in the proposed legislation. I will outline the two amendments to Bill C-481 that would be required for me to fully support the bill.

First, the bill would need to maintain paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This section provides for minimum and maximum ages of employment to be set out in regulations that were made by the Governor in Council.

Second, a coming into force provision would be required to allow the employers the necessary timeframe to implement these changes.

I will fully explain the aspect of the bill that I would support.

Bill C-481 would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act to remove two blanket exceptions, as well as the regulation making power that provides defences for mandatory retirement. Those blanket exceptions apply either in cases where a union expels a member who has reached the normal retirement age or where an employee is forced to retire upon reaching the normal age of retirement for individuals in similar positions. Eliminating blanket exceptions for mandatory retirement, while allowing employers to continue to establish bona fide occupational requirements, is consistent with current legislative trends and employment practices.

All provinces and territories have already amended their human rights legislations to remove blanket exceptions for mandatory retirement. This bill would bring federal legislation in line with current provincial legislation on the matter. However, the possibility of defending mandatory retirement policies still remains if there is sufficient evidence to show that they are required for health or safety reasons.

The average age of retirement in Canada today is 62 and only about 10% of the population continues to work after 65. Therefore, mandatory retirement policies in the federal jurisdiction affect very few employees in practice. In fact, less than 2% of federally-regulated employers have a mandatory retirement policy and only about 10% of large employers with 100 employees or more have a mandatory retirement policy.

Also, I would like to correct some comments recently reported in the press. Employees of the federal public service are not required to retire at age 65. In fact, mandatory retirement was generally eliminated from the federal public service in 1986, allowing employees to continue working as long as they wish.

In addition, evidence is suggesting that several large employers may actually abolish the practice of mandatory retirement in the near future.

There are areas of exclusive federal jurisdiction, such as the Canadian Forces and interprovincial and international transportation activities, where there may be circumstances that warrant a mandatory retirement policy. Repealing paragraph 15 (1)(b) would pose a significant challenge to the Canadian Forces' operational capability, not to mention the efficient management of military personnel and cost containment. The Canadian Forces must maintain an active and ready force. It must be able to recruit within its ranks. Therefore, it requires a continuous flow of personnel to ensure appropriate experience and expertise throughout its ranks.

Moreover, managing an older workforce would require increased financial and personnel resources, which would be funded from a fixed envelope at the direct expense of other priorities. Therefore, the Canadian Forces needs to maintain its current mandatory retirement policy.

I will now turn to my next point, which is amending the severance provision in the Canada Labour Code. Currently, under the code, employees whose employment is involuntarily terminated are entitled to severance pay. However, an existing provision, paragraph 235(2)(b), denies severance pay to those eligible for pension benefits, whether that t is the Canada pension plan, OAS, old age security, or private pension.

This creates differences in how otherwise similar employees are treated regarding a work-related benefit. For example, an employee with 20 years of service whose employment is terminated a month after becoming entitled to a pension loses entitlement, while someone two months younger with the same service is entitled to 40 days severance pay. I believe this to be unfair. Therefore, I support repealing this provision.

Bill C-481 needs a coming into force provision. This would allow employers and unions to make adjustments to prepare for the elimination of mandatory retirement and would give them time to reconfigure any policies or benefit plans that would be affected. It would help determine whether existing age-related practices need to be defended as bona fide occupational requirements and would further assist in negotiations of new collective agreements that comply with the legislation.

Provinces and territories did put in similar transition periods when the elimination of mandatory retirement came to their books. Additionally, eliminating blanket exceptions for mandatory retirement could raise a low charter risk to the extent that it might substantially interfere with any current collective agreements. Discussions between the government and affected parties about the transition provision may reduce this risk even further.

Abolishing the practice of mandatory retirement within the federal jurisdiction would not only be advantageous for workers but it would also be beneficial for our economy. Canada is facing the challenges of an aging population. It is projected that the proportion of Canadians aged 65 or older will increase from 13% to roughly 25%. In addition, the ratio of pensioners to workers is expected to shrink from four workers for every retiree to two workers for every retiree, and all of this will happen by 2030.

Within that period of time, these massive demographic changes will mean added fiscal pressures on Canadians' ability to manage increasing health care and pension plan costs. Canada will need to retain its skilled, seasoned workers and make greater use of their talents for longer periods of time.

There is abundant evidence that suggests that older workers are actually more likely to remain in the workforce when organizations have human resources practices that accommodate their needs and preferences. In other words, if they feel valued, they will continue contributing to the prosperity and well-being of Canada.

Bill C-481 would establish greater fairness for older workers and values their contributions.

The House resumed from November 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Laval—Les Îles for bringing forward Bill C-481, which has been before this place in the past. I am pleased to hear the input of other colleagues and other parties as well.

As we know, the bill itself is seeking to repeal subsection 9(2) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, to replace paragraphs 15(1)(b) and (c) of the Canadian Human Rights Act and, third, to repeal paragraph 235(2)(b) of the Canada Labour Code.

Ultimately this all has to do with the subject matter of mandatory retirement age, and in fact, recently courts have ruled that the case of Air Canada and a couple of pilots was a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What I would like to talk about is why we should do this.

Pragmatically, the last speaker raised some interesting points about what some employers would do to take advantage of that situation, but this bill in no way amends pension plans that organizations have established. Pension benefits and defined pension benefit plans lay out the number of years of service necessary to accrue the vesting that is necessary to get maximum benefits. Should any employer decide it wants to propose changes to any of its benefit plans, including its pension benefit plan, that is a matter between the employer and the employees and the existing pensioners, to determine whether it is in the best interests of the employees and the long-term benefit of a pension plan for that organization.

However this is a situation where we have a life expectancy in Canada that has increased enormously over the last few decades. As I mentioned earlier in a question, the age of 65, in terms of the age at which people were no longer useful, came up during the time of Bismarck, and the people at age 65 were referred to as the unnecessary eaters. They were the burdens of society.

My father-in-law passed away at age 65. He virtually worked for the same company all his working life, but when he reached the age of 65, all of a sudden he did not go to work. The door was closed. There was this barrier. It was mandatory and he left that job. He was dead within three months. I think it was the culture shock of having lost that life and that involvement. He was a sharp, bright guy who did an extremely good job for his company, but that is just what the rules were.

I have to wonder whether or not this is another reason that we have to deal with this, because there are people who have the capacity and the physical and mental ability to do excellent jobs. When we look at some of the fundamentals, for example, that today about 70% of the jobs in Canada require post-secondary education and in 10 years 77% of jobs will require post-secondary education, we cannot keep up with the demand for qualified people to do jobs. Therefore there is a lot of pressure from companies to keep employees longer, because they have the experience and the expertise. They are going to allow that flexibility to companies to be able to have that expertise, to bring along and train those to take over important positions.

As the mover of the bill mentioned, this particular bill is only going to affect about 10% of employees in Canada, but I have a feeling that it will be a subject matter that will be taken up in all jurisdictions as it relates to retirement age.

I must admit that there will be some arguments. We heard some from the last speaker, the arguments some people might have in opposing this bill, and in fact there are a number that the mover has identified. One is that unions might have some concern because they fought to protect workers' rights.

There is this concern about a slippery slope, that somehow this bill would give them a foundation or a route to be able to use and that companies would start to erode away pension rights under the plans they operate. This bill has nothing to do with that. That is really a matter that is the purview of other jurisdictions and in fact of the company and the unions representing the employees in these matters.

Every plan lays out, in detail, the criteria necessary for people to qualify for benefits, how many years they have to serve and at what age they can start to collect. Many plans emulate some of the things the Canada pension plan has, where people can elect to take early retirement at an actuarially reduced amount or may defer their pension. A lot of teachers do. In fact, with an OMERS pension, people can defer their pension and even after they have retired can make additional premium contributions to top up by having additional investments in the plan.

There are many issues here. I would not be too concerned about the slippery slope argument. This bill is not suggesting, in any way, shape or form, that other jurisdictions would have to look at the impact. It is their responsibility to look at that.

The displacement of younger workers is another issue that will come up, I suspect, as the labour markets expand. As I indicated, we do have situations now where we are unable to fill all of the skill sets necessary in jobs that are available in Canada now, which is why we have had a significant increase in the demand for new Canadians to come, who have those skill sets. We need a better balance, obviously, of training and education for people who are in Canada so that we can, as a normal course, fill those jobs.

This is not an issue now. In fact the flexibility in the system for people who have reached age 60 or 65, depending on the institution we are talking about, has that latitude.

As I pointed out earlier, we have come through some very difficult times. Clearly the adequacy of pensions for today's retirees is a very serious issue. There are a lot of people who have not been able to accrue sufficient pension benefits.

What do we expect people to do under a mandatory retirement system, when they can no longer have the continuity of their job? If they leave this job, where they are an engineer making $150,000, trying to make sure they have their retirement, what do they do?

They have to go to some other employer to see if that employer will hire them under its rules. How many of these people go to nominal jobs that do not really match their skill sets and do not make them feel useful? This makes no sense.

It does make sense when people have choices. Workers have the right to choose to stay and to continue to provide good service.

I do know that there are provisions in certain elements of society where people cannot go on beyond a certain age. One of the ones I was involved in was firefighting. There was an amendment made to allow firefighters to qualify for full Canada pension benefits earlier than the normal age of 65. The reason was that the life expectancy of firefighters is substantially less than the national average, because of the dangers and the risks to health associated with that profession.

There are others. I think one of the concerns that may come up is with regard to pilots. We have a 67-year-old pilot who was forced out of his job. We have to presume here, very clearly, and it is not a presumption; it is a requirement. We have to presume that for those who choose to continue to work in a job, the understanding is that they continue to be fully qualified, fully trained, up to date, physically and mentally fit as necessary to be able to do the job in a perfectly satisfactory fashion in accordance to the criteria of the employer.

This is not to say that a pilot who has lost the edge can continue to be a pilot. The issue is that meeting the job criteria fully is the presumption here and we are really talking about choice for workers.

This bill from the member for Laval—Les Îles is a bill that is well worthwhile to move forward quickly and get the full support of this House.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-481, a bill which would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code to prohibit federally regulated employers, and that is private sector employers subject to federal acts and regulations, as well as the federal public administration from setting a mandatory retirement age.

I welcome this debate because it allows us to finally take a closer look at the myth of mandatory retirement in our country. In fact, there is no universal prohibition in place now that would stop all Canadians from working past the age of 65. People over 65 are working all over the country. They are university professors, doctors, lawyers and, as I look around this chamber, apparently quite a few politicians too.

Those of us in these professions are blessed. We make up a small percentage of working adults who actually enjoy our work, at least I hope we do. For me, the work that I do right now is gratifying and I am excited about the chance to do it on a daily basis. I know most other members in the House feel the same way.

However, we are fortunate, and we are definitely in the minority. Most of the world, most of the working people in our country, are not like us. Most working men and women do not have jobs that are clean and safe. Working for them is not a vocation or a calling; it is simply a necessity.

I think about the industrial workers in my home town of Hamilton. I think about the tens of thousands of men and women who have worked in the steel mills. They are not desk jockeys. They were walking along catwalks around furnaces, molten steel flying and splashing and they have the scars from 20 and 30 years of being burned by it. It is hotter than Hades and they are inhaling particulate matter that will impact them for the rest of their lives.

They are not there because they love the smell of molten steel. They are there so they can take home a paycheque at the end of a long week's work. Despite the fact that their bodies are no longer as strong in their 50s as they were in their 20s, they keep working because they need the money to pay off their second mortgage, not a new mortgage for a better home, but the second time they have taken out a mortgage on their existing homes so they can finance their children's college or university education. They are desperate for an exit point.

It is not just about steelworkers. It is about workers in hundreds of occupations in jobs from coast to coast to coast. It is about miners in Sudbury and Voisey's Bay. It is about construction workers whose back-breaking work exposes them to the cruellest of elements. It is about nurses whose physical jobs give their profession the highest rate of workplace injuries in the country.

The bill before us today is about federally regulated workplaces, but the same physical strains exist for many of the proud members of the teamsters or the CAW, CEP, CUPW, CUPE, PSAC, and I could go on. Their jobs are not like ours. There comes a time when their bodies just cannot do it anymore, and that is to say nothing of their souls.

That is why pensions are always at the forefront of negotiations in organized workplaces. People are not looking to work past the age of 65. They want to be able to retire as early as possible, and as early as possible usually means a time when their pensions will have accrued to a sufficient amount to allow for a retirement with relative income security.

The normal age for retirement in Canada has therefore become 65. Age 65 is when the old age security pension benefits begin, and most private and public retirement plans have been designed to provide income to people starting at 65. A specific age is needed because people have to select premium payments by contributors to calculate how much money is available to retirees when they leave the program, which is to say, when they retire. In that way retirement age and retirement income are inextricably linked.

We have had a number of debates in the House about the inadequacy of public pensions and the increasing incidents of solvency insufficiencies in private pension plans. To date, the government has merely paid lip service to improving those pension systems. While they wait for the government to act, literally thousands of Canadians, who have worked hard all their lives and who have played by the rules, are finding it impossible to make ends meet on their meagre pension incomes.

Therefore, what do they do? They go out and find another job to supplement their pensions. The now iconic Wal-Mart greeter is but one example. Thousands of seniors are now working in the retail sector and at fast food places, not because these are their dream jobs but because they have to survive.

Let us be absolutely clear. These seniors are not working by choice. They are working these minimum wage jobs in their golden years because it keeps the wolves at bay. It is not about choice. All too often that is the language the mandatory retirement debate wraps itself in, but this is really a debate about values.

For decades, trade unionists and other activists fought hard and struggled to ensure that future generations would not have to work until they dropped dead in the workplace. They fought for pensions and a retirement at a reasonable enough age that older Canadians could spend their senior years doing all the things they did not have time to do while they were working, perhaps volunteering, perhaps teaching English as a second language, perhaps helping raise their grandchildren or perhaps even going back to school. Those options offer real choices, and they are an integral part of the fulfilling retirement we promised workers in exchange for the wage concessions and taxes they contributed toward building their pension funds.

When women work past the age of 65, it is not because they would not rather be pursuing other interests. To paraphrase American Democrat Paul Tsongas, nobody on her deathbed ever said “I wish I'd spent more time at the office”. But women's work in the home has been so devalued by successive Liberal and Conservative governments in Canada that many women do not have adequate pension contributions to be able to survive without a paying job in their golden years.

However that is not a so-called choice that women should have to make. The solution to that is not the abolition of mandatory retirement. The solution is to recognize, value and compensate the incredibly hard work women do in their homes and revamp the system to take into account late entries into the workforce or interrupted participation. Only when such a system is in place would women have a real choice about whether or not to work past the age of 65.

So again, debates about retirement age and retirement income are inextricably linked.

Herein lies the real fear about legislation that seeks to abolish mandatory retirement. As I said before, thousands of Canadians are already working past the age of 65, and there is no law that prohibits that. But 65 is the accepted age for pension calculations. So by doing away with what is described as mandatory retirement, the fear is that it will allow pension fund managers, both public and private, to raise the age for pension eligibility. Let us be clear. There is a huge lobby from the corporate side for precisely that, because there are huge cost savings at stake for employers. For every year that the retirement age is raised beyond 65, the employer's pension liabilities are reduced dramatically.

Heck, I would wager that the only reason Canadian pension legislation passed with an age limit of 65 in the first place is that, at that time, the average life expectancy of a Canadian, predominantly male, worker was 57 years of age. Clearly, it is not a great risk to offer pensions at 65 when a third of eligible workers would never, ever reach it.

Fortunately, life expectancies are now well into the eighties for Canadians. But existing pensions are proving wholly inadequate. Two-thirds of Canadians do not have a company pension plan. One-third of Canadian families have no retirement savings, and management fees from some mutual funds can consume as much as 35% to 45% of RRSP savings over a period of 40 years. Canadians are looking to their government for help.

However, the government is looking at the issue through a different lens. Life expectancies into the eighties mean that both governments and employers are looking for a way out of meeting their pension obligations, and the abolition of the mandatory retirement age is the first step down on that slippery slope.

I cannot wait to hear from Canadians when this bill is dealt with in committee. I can well imagine that there will be some who do sincerely want to continue their research or other professional pursuits well past the age of 65, and I acknowledge that the typical justification for mandatory retirement may not be appropriate. After all, if the argument is that certain occupations are either too dangerous or require too high a level of physical or mental skill for most people over the age of 65, then the age does seem somewhat arbitrary since it is not based on an actual physical evaluation of an individual person. That is where arguments about discrimination or ageism legitimately enter the debate.

Unless there are meaningful reforms to the pension system first, I find it hard to believe that the abolition of mandatory retirement would be in the interests of the hardworking Canadians I represent in my riding of Hamilton Mountain, and I cannot wait to hear from them on this important issue when the bill comes to committee.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is our turn to speak to the bill before us here today, Bill C-481. Basically, I believe I can sum up our feelings, our response to this bill, by saying that it is long overdue.

I find it quite interesting that, at the end of 2010, and with a bill from the official opposition no less, the government seems to accept this idea. However, we must be wary of the recent proposed amendments, because the government has already played that game, specifically, by giving the power to create regulations and implement legislation, although that is usually its way of evading the issue. It says that we can do whatever we like in the House, that we can pass any bills we like, but it will not necessarily implement them.

When a bill is introduced in the House and supported by the majority in this House, it should be implemented. However, I do realize there is a transition period.

At this time, human rights laws and the Canada Labour Code allow both employers and unions to tell people celebrating their 65th birthday that, while they may have been good workers yesterday, tomorrow they will be too old. So those workers are thanked and shown the door. The Canada Labour Code allows this. And this does not apply only to a limited number of employers; it also applies to all Government of Canada employees. Thus, when anyone who works in the public service or for any Crown corporation turns 65, he or she can be told, “Thank you and congratulations, but we no longer need you, so, good bye”.

This is one of the best examples of the difference between Quebec society and Canadian society and it must be respected. We have to wonder how this came about. It is quite simply because we are different. When we say that Quebec is not like Canada, of course that is because of language issues, because of the way we regulate our markets and because of many other things, especially because Quebec was given that right in 1982. We have been different in that respect for nearly 30 years. We are different because we said, why not? Just because someone celebrates their 65th birthday does not mean they suddenly become incompetent, that they are not needed and that we can get rid of them. Since 1982, we have not seen this type of behaviour in Quebec by either employers or unions. No one in Quebec would ever consider the idea of wishing someone a happy birthday and then never seeing them again.

Under the Canadian Human Rights Act, a person can be prevented from joining a union and a union has the right to expel or suspend a union member. Remarkably, the Canada Labour Code makes it possible to get rid of those people. In Quebec, we have the fundamental right to live and the fundamental right to keep working. It is the way attitudes evolve. Earlier we heard some statistics. In 2001, the Government of Canada conducted studies that found that in 20 years—in 2021—or 10 years from now, there would be as many Canadians 65 and older as children. We know that the baby boomers are beginning to retire now.

In the provinces, there has been every manner of tax and fee possible and unimaginable in order to have a health care system. What does it accomplish? Among other things, it allows us to live longer.

It also makes it possible to tell people that 65 is not old. It is one year older than 64 and one year younger than 66. It is a number; that is all. The age of 65 is not synonymous with incapacity or incompetence.

Some would say that there are dangerous occupations that require a certain amount of dexterity. I agree, but a loss of dexterity does not necessarily occur at age 65. It may occur at age 50. Very few of us here could play hockey in the National Hockey League, not because we are old but because we no longer have the ability to do so, and it is not at age 65 that this happens.

Unelected senators can serve until they are 75 years old, while MPs can serve in the House as long as the voters continue to elect us to office. So, in Quebec, we determined that the people should also be able to work until they freely decide to retire.

Are we able to live off our retirement pensions at age 65? I am the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Finance. A number of people have come to see us here in Ottawa to tell us that they cannot retire at age 65 because of a lack of income. They want to be able to continue working to achieve their full potential, because they are fit and because they want to pass on their knowledge. Why not?

Before I was elected to Parliament, I taught at the HEC Montréal, where people passed on their knowledge. People are asked to pass on their knowledge to younger generations. There is a problem if the mandatory retirement age is set at 65. On the other hand, people need to have the means to retire at 65. The people who came to see us said that because of what they get in Canada and Quebec pension plan benefits and the fact that the guaranteed income supplement is not paid automatically in Canada, they have a hard time making ends meet once they reach 65. Why not let these people keep on working? But the way to do it is not by making regulations and asking the government to implement this legislation when it sees fit. Canadians want this bill to be passed in 2010. Quebec has had similar legislation since 1982.

I am currently touring Quebec with some of my Bloc colleagues and talking to people about our budget expectations for 2011. A number of people told us we should carry on with our work, and that is what we are doing. In Quebec, no one is telling us that the mandatory retirement age should be 65, except for people working in labour relations in Canada.They wonder why their neighbours should have the right to keep on working when they do not because of the Canada Labour Code. That is discrimination.

The minister or the parliamentary secretary is saying that he could support such a bill with these amendments, but that basically the Government of Canada does not want to. Canada is free to prevent people from working after age 65. In Quebec, we saw the light 30 years ago. That is one more reason to respect each other despite our differences.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and to the Minister of Labour]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to respond to Bill C-481, tabled in this House by my hon. colleague from Laval—Les Îles, with some background with respect to the government's position on this bill.

The bill proposes to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code. It would, in effect, put a stop to allowing mandatory retirement within the federally regulated private sector.

I commend my hon. colleague for having reintroduced this bill, which was first introduced in this House last November.

The matter of whether we should continue to have mandatory retirement in the federally regulated private sector is something that should be explored. It is timely. Therefore, this matter can be debated and must be debated here in Parliament. Mandatory retirement, as an issue, is taking on more importance for a number of reasons. Among them is the fact that our population is aging and our birthrate is in decline.

My view, and the position of the Government of Canada, is that there is a lot of merit in pursuing what is being proposed in Bill C-481. Provided that some additional amendments are made, the government would be prepared to support this bill.

I will identify those necessary amendments in a moment but first I would like to take a few moments to talk about why the provisions in this bill are important. The worker's right to choose is one of them.

Forcing someone to retire because of age is a form of discrimination. Unless there are compelling reasons, such as health and safety concerns, workers should have the right to choose when they retire. It should be a choice based on lifestyle and financial and health circumstances. It should not be decided for someone because they have reached a defined age.

Today, approximately 10% of Canada's population continues to work after age 65. The average age of retirement in Canada is 62. Given these facts, it is worth noting that mandatory retirement policies in the federally regulated private sector currently affect very few employees in practice. How few are affected by the mandatory retirement? Less than 2% of the federally regulated employers. Among large employers with 100 employees or more, about 10% have a mandatory retirement policy. That is a major drop from about 25% in the late 1990s. Within the federal public service, the practice of mandatory retirement ended in 1986. There has been consistent progress.

Turning to my next point, Bill C-481 is important as it represents consistent progress toward current employment practices. By eliminating blanket exemptions and exceptions for mandatory retirement in the federal jurisdiction, we would help align federal rules so that they are consistent with the provincial and territorial human rights legislation.

Having said this, some modest amendments are necessary before the government can give full support to this bill. Specifically, we must consider what the repeal of paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act would entail. It would remove the ability of the Government of Canada to enact regulations that could set out maximum age requirements for those groups for whom specific age requirements are necessary. That regulation-making power is important, so it needs to be maintained.

There is a regulation enacted under the authority of paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act that supports the mandatory retirement policy currently in place for the Canadian Forces. This poses a concern to the government in Bill C-481, in its current form.

Repeal of this paragraph would pose significant challenges to the operational capability of the Canadian Forces. It also could have an impact on their ability to contain costs and to manage military personnel effectively and efficiently.

To maintain an effective and ready force, the Canadian Forces must recruit from within its ranks. It requires a continuous flow of personnel to ensure appropriate experience and expertise throughout the ranks. The longer members serve, the more wear and tear they will incur due to the physical and psychological demands of military service and the greater the risk will be of individual performance failures with consequences for mission success and the health and safety of others.

For these reasons, the Canadian Forces seeks to maintain its existing mandatory retirement policy. Therefore, amendments are needed to safeguard the government's ability to effectively manage the Canadian Forces.

There are other areas, such as interprovincial and international transportation activities where there may be circumstances that warrant a mandatory policy.

Moreover, departments whose mandates cover the affected stakeholder group, for example, Transport Canada with respect to the airline and maritime industry, may wish to propose regulations for consideration to allow mandatory retirement policies for those industries as long as they are necessary and proportional under the charter.

With respect to severance pay, the bill also proposes to amend the Canada Labour Code to remove the provision that denies employees severance pay upon involuntary termination if they are eligible for pension benefits, whether public or private. Age should not be a determinant of eligibility for severance pay. All workers should be eligible for severance pay when they are involuntarily terminated. For this reason, I support repealing this provision as proposed in the bill. Further, an adjustment period is required.

We also propose that a provision be added to Bill C-481 so that there is a transition period. This is important. It would help unions and employers make adjustments to adapt to the changes. It would give them time to review their human resource policies, pensions, benefit plans, and collective agreements to ensure compliance. This is a sensible thing to do. It would ensure a smooth transition.

Abolishing the practice of mandatory retirement within the federal jurisdiction would be consistent with current Government of Canada policies regarding older workers. Canada is facing the challenges of an aging population. It is projected that the proportion of Canadians aged 65 or older will increase from 13% to roughly 25%.

In addition, the ratio of workers to pensioners is expected to shrink from four workers for every retiree to two workers for every retiree. All of this would happen by 2030. Within that period of time, these massive demographic changes will mean added fiscal pressures on Canada's ability to manage increasing health care and pension plan costs. Canada will need to retain its skilled, seasoned workers and make greater use of their talents for longer.

These measures would also benefit women and immigrant workers in Canada, two groups that are more likely to re-enter the workforce or join it later in life than others. By prohibiting this workplace practice, these workers will be able to accrue additional years of service and strengthen their financial security should they wish to continue working beyond the fixed retirement age.

Let me restate the Government of Canada's position on Bill C-481. We would be prepared to support it provided that the following three amendments are adopted. First, the bill should be amended to maintain the regulation-making power in paragraph 15(1)(b) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Second, the bill should include a transition provision to allow employers and unions to adjust to the changes. Third, the bill should include a coming into force provision.

The proposed approach makes good policy sense. Although in practice it will affect only a very small number of federal jurisdiction private sector employees, it would remove barriers to continue labour market participation for older workers. This approach would also allow the government to retain its regulation-making power with regard to imposing mandatory retirement in exceptional cases for certain industries due to health, safety, and operational reasons and to ensure compliance with international laws and regulations.

With those exceptions, we are prepared to support the bill as proposed by my hon. colleague.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about two different things. I am talking about one thing and I think that my hon. colleague is talking about another. I am talking about equal circumstances where the employee is doing a good job and there are no complaints on the part of the employer.

We are talking about a certain type of employer. We are talking about the Government of Canada and companies that are linked to the Government of Canada but are at arm's-length.

The kind of situation I am talking about is when an employer has no complaints, but tells an employee who is now 65 years old that he or she must retire.

Bill C-481 is not concerned with people who are not doing their jobs correctly. If an employee is not doing his or her job correctly, then the onus is on the employer to present that to him or her.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

moved that Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, as the member of Parliament for Laval—Les Îles, I am proud to rise in this House to speak to Bill C-481 at second reading. The bill we are discussing today would amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code regarding mandatory retirement age.

My bill has three main objectives. The first is to repeal subsection 9(2) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. This amendment would ensure that unions and federal employees' organizations would no longer have the ability to exclude, expel or suspend an individual from membership in the organization because that individual has reached the normal age of retirement for individuals working in positions similar to the position of that individual. To clarify, this means within the same professional group, but not necessarily in the same organization.

The second objective is to replace paragraphs 15(1)(b) and 15(1)(c) of the Canadian Human Rights Act with the following for paragraph 15(1)(b):

It will be possible to terminate the employment of an individual who has not reached the minimum age that applies to that employment by law or under regulations that may be made by the Governor in Council.

The third objective is to repeal paragraph 235(2)(b) of the Canada Labour Code. By repealing this paragraph of the Canada Labour Code, the legislator is ensuring that the employer will be obligated to pay severance pay to an employee who reaches an age at which the individual is entitled to receive a retirement pension from a complementary pension fund.

Many public service employees subject to union agreements do not want to give up their severance pay, which is a one-time payment. For many people, particularly single mothers or newcomers into the Canadian labour force, being able to stay at work longer is an important part of their career plan. Many who have been unable to save enough for retirement are depending on the extra money as part of their transition into retirement.

According to a 2008 Statistics Canada survey, only 29% of older workers indicated that their workplace pension would be their main source of income and only 14% have RRSPs. These preliminary results were recently presented by Jean Pignal, from the surveys division of Statistics Canada, at a workshop in Ottawa.

For the information of members, according to the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada website, approximately 12,000 federally regulated businesses and industries are employing 840,000 people, or 10% of Canadian workers under the Canada Labour Code, who would be affected by this bill if it were to become law.

Before I go further in the time I have, I will briefly inform the House of the genesis of Bill C-481. I will not go into lengthy detail about the cases that sparked my bill because there are several layers to these cases, including a Federal Court judicial review.

On August 28, 2009, in its second decision, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled that it was discrimination based on age for Air Canada to force two of its pilots to retire because they had reached age 60. According to the tribunal, the Air Canada Pilots Association had knowingly signed a union agreement with Air Canada that violated section 15 of the charter prohibiting discrimination on a number of grounds, including age.

The tribunal also ruled that not only had the Canadian Human Rights Act been breached because it prohibits discrimination based on age, but paragraph 15(1)(c) of the Canadian Human Rights Act is contrary to the charter because it perpetuates the prejudice with the following statement:

an individual’s employment is terminated because that individual has reached the normal age of retirement for employees working in positions similar to the position of that individual;

Bill C-481 aims to revoke that paragraph.

The tribunal based its first decision, which was set aside by the Federal Court in its judicial review, on its perception of what was normal, especially whether other airlines had the same requirements. In fact, not all airlines have the same requirements, at least not all Canadian airlines.

The earliest available statistics show us that between 1920 and 1922 it was normal for males to have an average life expectancy of 59 years and for females 61 years. However, in the 21st century we have a vastly different Canadian population than in the early 1900s. Today, life expectancy for males is 78.3 years and for females 80.7 years on average. In other words, what was normal then in terms of age is certainly no longer normal today.

The original conditions for mandatory retirement were unquestionably based on the social reality. Following the second world war, workers demanded stable jobs, better access to health care and safe workplaces. Workers asked for permanent economic security despite dips in the economy. The government listened to these concerns and created a number of social programs.

However, as unions gained strength in speaking for workers' rights, the mandatory retirement age of 60 became normal practice in union agreements. Today, in the 21st century, our social environment dictates a different course of action.

As federal legislators, it is our duty to set the standards in our laws. Our charter gives us that guidance. Transport Canada, in case my colleagues are not aware, sets the licensing policies for all our pilots. There are very stringent rules.

If this section of the Canadian Human Rights Act remains, it would continue to set a blanket standard for all organizations without paying attention to the charter or the specific norms that dictate policies within that organization, even though work positions may appear to be similar.

Just a few days ago, on November 8, 2010, the tribunal ordered Air Canada to compensate George Vilven, 67, and Neil Kelly, 65. Air Canada must reinstate these two former employees with the level of seniority they would have reached had they continued to work. They must also be compensated for lost wages and benefits associated with their seniority as well as for the pain and suffering they endured.

In fact, the tribunal was even harsher in its criticism and called on Air Canada and its union to pay for wilful and reckless damage. Unfortunately, the Human Rights Tribunal does not have the power to extend its decision to other cases. The decision rendered is only pertinent to these two complaints.

The tribunal cannot force Air Canada and the association to stop signing agreements that include mandatory requirements. Therefore, this clause, according to the tribunal in its remedial actions, remains operative. Only we as legislators have the power to repeal the defence now being used to terminate employees in any federally regulated employee organization by amending the law as it now stands.

It has long been recognized by the courts that this is a complex issue and can only be resolved by the legislature.

In 2006, when the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) was considering gradually raising the maximum age limit for pilots to 65 years, the Government of Canada said it agreed with the idea but its official response was negative because Canada wanted to eliminate the age limit, given that section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination on the basis of age. Canada does not reduce the privileges of a pilot who has reached the age of 60. Canada does not object if a pilot who is over 60 and holds a valid medical certificate from an ICAO contracting state pilots a registered foreign aircraft in Canadian airspace.

Research shows that, according to current trends, abolishing mandatory retirement should not have a significant impact on the average age of new retirees or on the total number of years worked. For people concerned about the consequences—I have spoken to many of them—the research indicates that two-thirds of older workers choose to retire before age 65, 43% of all workers retire before 65 and the average retirement age for all workers was 61 in 1991. In addition, 11.8% of Canadians between 65 and 69 years of age were part of the labour force in 2001. Immigrants and women may remain in the labour force longer to build up larger pensions. Employers are better able to plan for turnover.

I call upon my colleagues to pass the bill as quickly as possible so we can continue to uphold the hard-won rights of citizens of Canada and all those who fought and continue to fight for the type of democracy in which we are so privileged to live today.

I would like my colleagues opposite to remember that Brian Mulroney's Conservative government, in 1986, accepted the principle that served as the basis for the sixth recommendation in the report of the Parliamentary Committee on Equal Rights, which suggested that the Canadian Human Rights Act be amended so that employers could not invoke certain grounds.

Since then, we have made a number of changes and we must continue to build our labour force. The unions I have spoken to are prepared to implement these changes. A number of them went before the Canadian Human Rights Commission on behalf of their members and won their cases.

History holds our everyday lives together. Let us not be stuck in tradition because of the implemented laws that were necessary then. Let us use reasoned experience to guide us as legislators in the 21st century to continue to do the right thing for Canadians.

[Raymonde Folco, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age).

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today in this House to introduce my bill on human rights and the Canada Labour Code to prohibit federally regulated employers from setting a mandatory retirement age. This would include private-sector employers subject to federal acts and regulations, as well as the federal public administration.

I would like to thank the member for Vancouver Quadra for her support on the bill.

The purpose of my bill goes one step beyond the decision of April 9 by the Federal Court of Canada, which found that age discrimination violated the charter following complaints by two Air Canada pilots. This was followed by a Human Rights Tribunal decision on August 28, which said, in part, that mandatory retirement was an affront to the right to equality and found that the infringement of equality rights through mandatory retirement could no longer be justified.

My bill would remove the offending provisions of the Canadian Human Rights Code and other federal acts and regulations.

These changes would affect more than 840,000 Canadians, or 10% of the country's labour force, at a time when our birth rate is on the decline. I hope that members on both sides of this house will support the swift passage of this bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)