Bill C-26 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Canada Pension Plan, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act and the Income Tax Act

Part 1 of this enactment amends the Canada Pension Plan to, among other things,
(a) increase the amount of the retirement pension, as well as the survivor’s and disability pensions and the post-retirement benefit, subject to the amount of additional contributions made and the number of years over which those contributions are made;
(b) increase the maximum level of pensionable earnings by 14% as of 2025;
(c) provide for the making of additional contributions, beginning in 2019;
(d) provide for the creation of the Additional Canada Pension Plan Account and the accounting of funds in relation to it; and
(e) include the additional contributions and increased benefits in the financial review provisions of the Act and authorize the Governor in Council to make regulations in relation to those provisions.
This Part also amends the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Act to provide for the transfer of funds between the Investment Board and the Additional Canada Pension Plan Account and to provide for the preparation of financial statements in relation to amounts managed by the Investment Board in relation to the additional contributions and increased benefits.
Part 2 makes related amendments to the Income Tax Act to increase the Working Income Tax Benefit and to provide a deduction for additional employee contributions.

Second Reading

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his question and for the very important contribution that he makes to the Standing Committee on Finance.

The member mentioned one number. I am going to give him four. People who are making $50,000, over their working life, will receive $16,000 in CPP benefits instead of today's $12,000. That is $4,000 more for the contributions that are made now.

I know my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent, and I know that he is concerned about this generation. However, I also know that he understands that we need to invest today for tomorrow. I can assure him that the people in his riding and mine will remember this historic moment for Canada.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the last Liberal government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau introduced important measures to protect pension benefits of parents who stayed home to raise children. The current government appears to have forgotten them in Bill C-26.

Women already receive lower average CPP benefits than men. If this problem is not fixed, the gender inequality will only get worse. Bill C-26 contains a significant flaw that hurts women and people with disabilities. The proposed legislation fails to copy the child rearing dropout provision that were included in the existing CPP, so parents are not penalized for taking time out of the workplace to raise their children. Similarly there is a problem vis-à-vis the people with disabilities.

Is the government open to amendments to address this significant flaw?

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member has raised a very important point. Let me be very clear for Canadians watching at home and members of Parliament in the House today. With this CPP enhancement, all Canadian workers will be better off. The statistics show that when people retire, women tend to have less income than men. The enhancements to CPP will benefit women. We are very proud to provide additional retirement income for all Canadians, particularly women, who retire with lower incomes than men.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy working with my colleague on the finance committee. It seems like the $50,000 mark mostly is a point of argument that is favourable for him to start by showing that $4,000 increase. To be honest that $4,000 increase, from $12,000 to $16,000, in a four-year term with the inflation rate, is very shy and very short of reach. Therefore, this is not going to benefit. The extra investment will be put in place by employees. By the way, he never mentioned the contribution of employers, which is a significant number. It would be more credible for him to mention that to Canadians so they understand what the employers are going to pay, which is an additional tax and a disadvantage for employers.

How can the member work the math properly to show Canadians the proper news when they will not see any benefit four years from now and from a financial position, an investment position, that will help Canadians and make sense of an investment? I do not see it. It is not shown—

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I value the member's contribution to the finance committee. He is a man of numbers. Let me give him some numbers again. People who make $50,000 a year over their working life will receive $16,000 each year in retirement instead of $12,000 this year. That is $4,000 more per year when they retire. What will they have to contribute to get that additional pension? If they make $50,000 over their lifetime in pensionable earnings, they will have to contribute $6 a month starting in 2019, to get $4,000 more in additional benefits. Canadians get it and they want it.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this debate, even though we saw from the vote that took place earlier that, unfortunately, the government is infringing on parliamentarians' right to speak.

This government is allowing no more than one-third of the members of the official opposition to speak about this bill, which will have a direct impact on taxpayers both in the short and long term. The so-called positive measures set out in this bill will not take effect for 40 years. I do not want to make anyone feel old, but there are many people here who will not benefit from the supposed enhancement of the CPP set out in this bill.

There are in fact two conflicting views. On one hand, there is the view of the Conservative Party, which would prefer to give Canadians the tools they need to save for themselves. Let us not forget that we came up with the well-known TFSA, which is very popular and should not only be maintained but also made more accessible. We are giving people the tools they need to make the best choice about how to save.

On the other hand, the Liberal government says that it knows what is good for Canadians, that it will take more money from workers, and that it will force employers to pay higher CPP premiums.

These are two conflicting views. Not everyone will agree on which one is best, but it is clear to us that it should be the worker, the citizen, or the business person who decides what works best for them, rather than leaving it up to the government.

What will this bill do? It will result in workers paying an additional $1,000 on average into the Canada pension plan. For business owners, it means paying $1,000 more on average for every employee in every business. What a heavy burden to bear.

Let us first look at the $1,000 per worker. We believe that it is always better to leave money in people's pockets than to put it in the government's hands. A tax grab of $1,000 per worker is not the right thing to do.

What about businesses and employers? We believe that private enterprise, not the government, creates jobs. The government must do everything it can to support, empower, and pave the way for businesses. It is not the government's job to do the work of business people, who are the real creators of jobs and wealth. They are the backbone of the Canadian economy. We have to do everything we can to help them create jobs and wealth, but mostly, we should not be foisting new taxes on them, and yet, the government has decided to saddle them with additional costs amounting to $1,000 per worker.

Knowing that this government is going to charge our businesses even more fees does not bode well for the future. Let us not forget that this government wants to impose the Liberal carbon tax, which will have a direct impact on every one of our businesses. Let us not forget that this government was committed to reducing the business tax rate from 10.5% to 9%, but there is not one iota of information on how the government plans to do that. Let us also not forget that this government was elected on a promise of running a modest $10-billion deficit, but in reality it is three times worse and so far we have no idea when there will be a return to balanced budgets. Let us not forget that a deficit is a tax we are deferring to our children and grandchildren who will have to pay for today's mismanagement.

We believe that the government is on the wrong track with this bill.

Let us face facts: it goes without saying that we would all like to have a more pleasant and worry-free retirement. That is what everyone agrees on, hopes for, and wants to work toward. Here is another fact: the situation has vastly improved over the past few decades thanks to the sound policies put in place by previous governments, including that of the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney.

I should point out that, in recent years, the government implemented measures to help people save money. As a result, according to Statistics Canada, the proportion of low-income seniors dropped from 29% in 1970 to 3.7% today, which is one of the lowest rates in the world. That is something to think about. Of course, we always have to be mindful of the less fortunate among us, but there are fewer of them than before, particularly among seniors.

We were on the right track because we gave people the tools they needed to make the right choices for themselves. In 1990, Canadians saved 7.7% of their paycheque, and now they save 14.1%. That is happening because we got people more interested in saving and investing wisely.

If, God forbid, this bill is passed and comes into force, what impact will it have? According to a Finance Canada analysis, it will result in reduced employment, reduced GDP, reduced business investment, reduced disposable income, and reduced private savings. That is five reductions all told. That is two more strikes than baseball players get. Five strikes, five reductions, five factors that will slow economic growth. We know we need growth, especially considering that the people across the aisle are on such a spending spree, have no control over public spending, and do not even know when the budget will be balanced. Theirs is a worrisome approach.

A paper released by the C.D. Howe Institute shows that the Liberal Party's plan will not benefit low-income workers, because their premiums are going to go up but their net increase in retirement benefits will remain low, since higher CPP payments would be offset by clawbacks in GIS benefits.

Bragging about one's fine principles is all well and good, and so is saying that the most vulnerable among us will have more. That is fine, but what the government has given with one hand, it has taken away with the other. We, the Conservatives, are not the ones saying so; this is coming from the C.D. Howe Institute.

Incidentally, C.D. Howe was one of the greatest ministers in Canada's history. From my perspective, he was one of the people who helped shape Canada in the 20th century and helped establish this country's industrial base at a time when we were at war. I really like making historical asides from time to time. If we are going to be talking, we might as well enjoy ourselves a little.

The guaranteed income supplement was supposed to help the most vulnerable among us in the unfortunate event that people could not make ends meet with their private pension alone. Given that we pay more attention to that these days than we did in the past, when wages were lower and saving money did not occur to people so much, we created the guaranteed income supplement to bridge that gap and put people on a more equal footing.

However, considering the Liberal approach, that goal can unfortunately no longer be reached as it should be, and that spells trouble.

This bill is a clear indication of where we can draw the line between the government and our party. As far as we are concerned, we must give people the tools they need to make the right choice with respect to a good pension plan that is based on their own priorities. Of course we do not want to cancel anything that is coming from the federal government. The point is this. If it has to bring something new, then it should bring it on behalf of the people instead of putting it into the hands of the government. If we adopt this bill, the reality is that people will have less money in their pockets. This bill will give the government the right to take $1,000 a year out of the pockets of working people. Worse than that, it will cost entrepreneurs, those who create wealth and jobs and who are the real backbone of our economy, around $1,000 more for every worker in their business. This is not good for the Canadian economy, nor is it good for the people who work because it will take 40 full years before it achieves anything good for the people.

I urge all members of the House to vote against this bill.

[François-Philippe Champagne, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent knows that I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. That said, I would like to pick up on what he said.

Let us not forget what we told Canadians and what they voted against.

Let us not forget that we promised to help the middle class. The first thing this government did was introduce a tax cut for the middle class, of which nine million Canadians are benefiting today.

Let us not forget that we promised to help Canadian families. We did that with the Canada child benefit, which will help nine out of ten families and lift 300,000 children out of poverty. Our Conservative colleague voted against that measure.

Let us not forget that we proposed improvements to the Canada student loans and bursaries program. The Conservative Party voted against that measure.

Let us not forget that we have made an historic $8.4 billion investment in first nations in order to provide services in indigenous communities properly. The Conservative Party voted against this measure.

Let us not forget what we have done for our seniors. Today we are proposing improvements to the Canada pension plan. We also proposed improvements to the guaranteed income supplement that would help 900,000 seniors in the country, especially women, since most seniors living alone are women.

Let us also not forget that we lowered the age of retirement back to 65 from 67.

I have a simple question for my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent: why is he planning to vote against measures that benefit our seniors, our young people, the middle class, and everyone in his riding?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this measure will take even more money out of the pockets of taxpayers and business owners who need that money to create jobs and wealth so that people can make their own choices.

Since we are once again talking about the Liberals' election platform and the budget implementation bill, I am pleased to remind members that 65% of Canadians are not affected by the so-called tax cuts. Those who will benefit the most from the government's new tax cuts are Canadians who earn between $140,000 and $200,000 a year.

I must admit to my conflict of interest, as I am indeed in that tax bracket. However, I voted against the measure because the Liberals were leading people to believe that everyone would have more money when that is not true. In fact, 65% of Canadians will not benefit from the measure.

Let us remember that the Canada child benefit, which was supposed to be revenue neutral, is going to end up costing $3.4 billion more than our existing programs. Also, need I remind my colleagues that the Liberals forgot to index that benefit? That small oversight will add billions of dollars to the national debt.

My colleague spoke about first nations. Need I remind him that, on June 11, 2008, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, issued a formal apology to the first nations here in the House? That is the only time in Canadian history that a prime minister has done that. The only time in Canadian history that the grand chief addressed parliamentarians was when our government was in power, and we are very proud of that.

Must I also remind him that this government was elected on a platform that states, on page 76, that the Liberals would run a modest deficit of $10 billion and return to a balanced budget in three years? The deficit is three times larger, and we do not know when we will return to balance. Shame on them.

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his passion, although I do not necessarily agree with some of my colleague's comments.

I would like the member to respond to the fact that we do have a pension gap in this country. There is a crisis. Canadians are saving less money for their retirement. Unfortunately, for many Canadians who are saving for retirement this pension gap became worse under the previous Stephen Harper government.

I would like to know what my colleague's party is talking about. Could he explain to us what lessons Conservative members learned from their retirement plan for Canadians that obviously did not work and many Canadians are living in poverty in retirement.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there is definitely no perfect solution. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

We had specific goals and we did not exactly reach them all. Let us still take a look at Canada's overall situation today. In 1970, some people were living in abject poverty. They are much fewer in number today. According to Statistics Canada, 29% of seniors had low incomes in 1970, compared to 3.7% today. In my opinion, our achievements speak for themselves.

Could we have done more and had better results? That is quite likely the case. However, we were on the right track.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, just to respond very quickly to my colleague and friend across the way when he posed the question of whether the previous Conservative government could have done more, I would argue that the Conservative Party did virtually nothing in regard to assisting Canadian seniors. Indeed, the Conservatives could have done a whole lot more. In fact, for many years I sat in the opposition benches and listened to provinces calling for strong national leadership on the CPP. The Stephen Harper Conservative government continued to turn a deaf ear to what many provinces wanted and pushed the federal government to act upon. There is no doubt in my mind that it was a very low priority of the Stephen Harper government, that the Conservatives did not see the pensionable incomes.

To give any grace, I would suggest that at the very least the Conservatives did not understand and appreciate the importance of the CPP to the Canadian population and to many of the jurisdictions that wanted to see the national government demonstrate leadership on the file. That was not seen until we had our current Prime Minister in this current government who has taken decisive action and has demonstrated strong leadership in terms of recognizing what Canadians indeed wanted to see happen.

Before I get into that aspect, I want to make this very clear. I am a sensitive guy at times and I hear members provide questions or quotes, and maybe a little earlier quotes even about me in regard to the issue of time allocation. Let me address this issue because it is important for us to recognize. The Conservatives might have hoodwinked or fooled the New Democrats across the way, but they have not fooled the government members. I do not think it is going to be any surprise that what the Conservatives really want to do is kill Bill C-26. They might be the only entity in our country that opposes Bill C-26, but let there be no doubt that they want to kill this bill. They would be very happy if this bill never saw the light of day. That is why I was not surprised to see the Conservative Party play its games yesterday to try to prevent an ultimate vote occurring on Bill C-26. If it were up to the Conservative Party, we would never be voting on Bill C-26. That is why the Conservatives brought forward amendments.

They fooled the NDP, the third party. I give them credit for that, but sometimes it is not the easiest party to fool in this chamber. At the end of the day, time allocation is in fact a tool that is used to try to get the government business dealt with. This is something that Canadians want. A vast majority of Canadians support Bill C-26. I know that. If we are not prepared to use the tools, at times, that government has provided, then we will not be able to pass the important types of legislation that Canadians expect governments to pass.

I will give the Conservatives some credit. They have focused on what I would suggest is a bad bill, to line up and say that they do not want the bill to ever see the light of day. The Conservatives have had 30 speaking spots, but that does not mention the good number of other spots that they had in questions and answers. I would suggest that very easily more than half of the Conservatives, if they wanted to, could have actually spoken to the bill.

I will go further by saying that it does not take much. It takes 10 or 12 MPs to have party status. Any party can be fairly destructive in terms of the proceedings of the House because we have a finite amount of time in order to pass legislation through this chamber. If an opposition party chooses to be mischievous and not recognize what the government is trying to accomplish, it does not take very much to invoke time allocation. I saw that when I was in the opposition benches, where we had time allocation over 100 times. It does not take a genius from within an opposition party to create a bit of frustration on the government benches where it has to look at using that tool. Look at how much time has been allocated to Bill C-26.

If the government and opposition were to come to a consensus, that is always the ideal. We have a government House leader who has reached out to the opposition party in a very real and tangible way. If the opposition wants to be accommodative, and we are accommodating, that is great, but let us not kid around. We know that at times, the official opposition members will not want to co-operate, because they will want to kill a bill. However, just because the official opposition wants to kill a bill, it does not mean the government would not pass the bill, as we will continue to do what we believe is in Canadians' best interests first and foremost.

If we look at the substance of Bill C-26 and what it would do, it is pretty straightforward. It is a historical agreement achieved by our national government demonstrating leadership, right from the Prime Minister's Office to different ministries and, indeed, to our caucus. Every member of the Liberal caucus has been able to participate in this great debate regarding pensions for our seniors, and the CPP is one of those fundamental pensions that Canadians truly believe in and want to see action on by our government.

We took it a step further by saying that we were going to demonstrate that leadership, and within the first year of being elected, we have an agreement with provinces in every region of our country and their different political parties. Even Progressive Conservative parties have agreed to what we have before us today. We have many different advocacy groups that recognize that, yes, this is the type of legislation they want to see.

This is not just about today's seniors, but the government has not ignored them. The best example is the guaranteed income supplement, which was substantially increased in this budget. That initiative is going to lift tens of thousands of Canada's most vulnerable and poorest seniors out of poverty. That is helping today's seniors.

However, let us not focus on and think that because this would not help today's seniors in a very real and tangible way, we do not need to have this bill before us today. If we talk to seniors, they care about their children and grandchildren. They want their children and grandchildren to retire in dignity. This bill is all about the future, and this means having vision. This is a government that has leadership and understands that.

If I were to take any bill presented so far, this would be the bill I would focus my attention in showing why the Conservatives are no longer in power. It is because they lost touch with Canadians. That is the simple truth of it. They did not understand what Canadians really and truly wanted. They lost touch with them.

Contrast that with the attitude of the Prime Minister and this government. We have a Prime Minister who has consistently mandated his ministers, in fact, all of our caucus, to reach out to and better understand what Canadians want, and to bring that back to Ottawa so that the types of initiatives we take reflect what Canadians really want. This is really what Bill C-26 is all about.

I do not understand why the Conservative Party continues to oppose this legislation. This demonstrates that they still have not learned their lesson from the last election. They are ignoring what a vast majority of Canadians really want, and this is just one example of that.

I do not mind if the Conservatives want to stay out of touch with Canadians, but we will continue to move forward and will have to see what happens. However, we recognize what Bill C-26 is all about. Imagine a group of premiers, reflective of different political parties, meeting with the federal government, which is able to come to the table in such a way that we achieve an agreement.

It is an agreement that we believe is in the best interests of working people, not only in the short term, but also in the long term. The stakeholders, even businesses, in good part agree that this is legislation that all members of the House should be supporting.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I have seen a trend recently in the hon. member's speeches. He seems to have gotten a lot more dour. He seems to be a little more negative, and I am not sure if it is all sunny ways on that side.

However, the member seems to say that he knows exactly what Canadians want and need. I represent a constituency similar to his, and there are lots of people who do not agree with the government, and lots of people who do. How does he try to say that the Conservative Party has not learned its lesson? That is really a question for the people. Would he not agree that by making such generalized statements, it really shows that if we are not willing to listen to other viewpoints in this chamber, there is no point in having the chamber?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes reference to sunny ways. I am an optimist. Perhaps the Conservatives will change their position on this and vote in favour of it. That would be a wonderful thing to see.

I did not say every Canadian supports it. I said a vast majority of Canadians support it. If the member is doubting what I am saying, I would invite him to come to Winnipeg North, and if the opportunity were there for me to go to his riding, I could attempt to do that. However, I invite him to come to Winnipeg North and sit down with a group of seniors. He can pick the venue. We will put out an open invitation. I will put on the agenda what we have done for the seniors of today and tomorrow. I can talk about the reduction of the retirement age from 67 to 65 for the OAS. I can talk about the increase in the GIS. I can talk about how Bill C-26 would enrich future retirees.

I believe a vast, solid majority of people would be very happy with what our government is doing. It seems to be only the Conservative Party that is not. Other parties and jurisdictions have recognized that this is the right thing. We are all collectively behind what a vast majority of Canadians want. Only the Conservatives seem to be out of touch.

However, I am an optimist. I believe in sunny ways. Maybe they will change their vote to yes and support the bill going to committee.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Democratic Institutions]

Mr. Speaker, I want to continue on that point. This is an incredibly important debate. We have had many days to discuss it, and yet it is a very focused matter. The reality is that the time in the House to debate the matter has been fulsome.

The member brings up a good point, which is the concern the government has about Canadians not having the resources to retire with dignity. This is but one part of a broader plan to make sure that Canadians have a safe and secure retirement in the future. The member was beginning to speak to that. It is such an important point. Could he illuminate how this fits into the broader picture of how we are trying to ensure that Canadians have the retirement they deserve?