Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, and I thank my colleagues for allowing this.
I rise in the House today to speak at third reading of Bill C-26, An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act and the Income Tax Act.
In my remarks on Monday, I focused on how we in the NDP have found a mistake in the bill and our attempts to fix it. I described how the government had failed to include important provisions that would protect workers whose incomes are reduced because they take time to raise their kids and those whose incomes are reduced because of a disability.
The government either forgot to include those provisions or excluded them on purpose. We are not sure which it is. There are differing opinions on this matter. I must say that the government has been completely unwilling to shed any light on this matter. Government members have intentionally spoken around the issue, using the lines that have been written for them. I think many of them really do not know the answer. Only the minister knows the answer, and he has been the most unclear in his comments of any member on the other side of the House.
I then went on to describe the attempts by the NDP to get the government to fix the bill. Members on both sides of the House know the bill is flawed and needs to be fixed. We were encouraged by members on the other side of the House to go to committee to fix the bill. We worked hard with the legislative counsel, and we developed the clauses and the language needed to put the necessary dropout provision in the bill to fix the problem.
It is an easy fix: two amendments, less than two pages of language that would protect those who take time off for child-rearing, mostly women, and those living with disabilities. What happened at committee was a real eye-opener for me. The Liberal members of the committee were whipped hard to shut down any attempts to amend and fix the legislation.
Even though we know that some of them understand that the bill is flawed and needs to be fixed, they all lined up and supported the use of procedural tricks to shut down debate, not once, but twice. They should be ashamed, and I truly think some of them are. The Liberals then had a chance to fix the flaw themselves when the bill came back to the House at report stage. However, the government made it very clear it had no intent or interest in doing that.
Here we now are at third reading of a bill that is still flawed, with the rights of women and those living with disabilities still in question. This leads me to talk about where we go from here. Once we pass this legislation into law, will the problems we have identified ever get fixed? Will provisions that protect women and the disabled ever get included in the legislation? That is unclear, and it is making our continued support of this bill very difficult.
We will vote for it at third reading because the CPP needs to be changed, as we have fought for a long time, alongside our friends in the labour movement, to have the government increase benefits for retirees. However, we are very concerned about the government's supposed commitment to fix the legislation after the fact. We have heard in the House that the government needs to get the agreement of the provinces.
Last week we heard the following from the President of the Treasury Board:
We are aware that more could be done in respect of the dropout provisions for disability and child rearing and, in fact, the Minister of Finance will raise these provisions at the next meeting of the provincial and territorial finance ministers in December in the context of a triennial review of the CPP.
Then the next day we heard this from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance:
Our intent is to pass the bill, as is; however, the Minister of Finance will then raise the dropout provisions at the next provincial and territorial finance ministers' meeting in December, in the context of the triennial review of the Canada pension plan.
Also last week we heard from the finance minister 's director of communications that:
We’re aware that more could be done with respect to drop-out provisions for disability and child rearing to make sure that this expansion is as inclusive as possible.... However, in order to make any changes to the plan we need agreement from the provinces.
He continued that the finance minister would bring up the omission when he meets with his provincial counterparts in December to review CPP, a routine process that occurs every three years.
Canadians need to note the lack of a clear commitment shown in these quotes. Saying the minister will raise or bring up the omissions is certainly no commitment. How hard would the minister push the provinces to fix the bill and include the missing provisions? We do not know the answer to that. I was hoping to hear a more clear-cut commitment from the minister this week. However, that commitment does not seem to be forthcoming. If anything, the most recent spin makes me think the government is spinning away from any commitment at all.
When the minister was asked yesterday by one of my colleagues if he would fix the bill, he would not even address the question. Instead, we got the shallowest spin possible. This is all the finance minister would say on the matter:
What we also recognize is that there will always be opportunities for continued improvement. Our job, in working together with the provinces, is to move forward on this agreement and then to consider other ways we can improve the Canada pension plan in the future to ensure that the retirement health of Canadians is always provisioned for.
Those are very inspiring words, but hardly a commitment to fixing the problem caused by the omission of the dropout provision in this bill.
What concerned me even more were the comments made by the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands yesterday during debate, when she said:
On the evidence we have before us, it appears that the bill will disadvantage women for no apparent reason other than an oversight. I did have a brief moment to discuss this with the Minister of Finance earlier this morning, and his position is that to do what the NDP asks now would result in a transfer of wealth from poorer women to wealthier women because of the way the calculation works. Unfortunately, I do not have the full facts on this.
We do not have the full facts on this, either. I told the minister that, when he tried to spin me with the same argument in the hallway after question period yesterday. I also told him that the argument makes no sense at all. In fact, I think the inverse is probably true, given that the elimination of the childbearing dropout for the additional benefit would presumably penalize lower and modest-income mothers, since women in higher-income households are better able to adjust.
Besides, the argument fails to take into consideration that the CPP is basically an insurance plan into which people pay benefits. Raising benefits at one level does not mean having to reduce benefits at another level. Surely, someone qualified to be the finance minister of Canada should know this.
I also have to wonder where the minister came up with the calculations he says his argument is based on. We have been told all along that no costing of the dropout provisions has ever been done. Where did the numbers come from? If the minister has numbers, will he share them with us? Will he share them with Canadians?
I fear that the finance minister's proactive spin in this argument may be our best indication yet of the government's spinning away from any commitment to fixing the dropout provision mistake.
What Canadians need is a clear-cut commitment from the finance minister. We need to know that he intends to come away from the December meeting with his provincial counterparts with an agreement in hand. The agreement must fix the problem with the legislation and include a dropout provision that would protect women and those living with disabilities.
Will the finance minister stand in the House and make that commitment?
The NDP will remain vigilant and be persistent in our demands that the government fix its mistake. The government and the minister should be aware that the NDP will not let up its pressure until they follow through on their commitment.
Canadians deserve no less.
