moved for leave to introduce Bill C-576, An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan (retroactive payments).
Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to introduce a survivor pensioners bill. Widowers and widows deserve justice. The existing application deadline for the Canada pension plan is disqualifying survivors from accessing their late spouses' benefits. That is why I am putting forward new legislation to abolish deadlines that restrict survivor claims to only 11 months. This is a matter of fairness.
One of my constituents was denied two years' worth of retroactive payments because she missed a deadline while grieving the loss of her husband to cancer. We owe it to grieving Canadians and their late spouses, who have paid into the fund all of their lives, to make this change now.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)