Finance Committee on Oct. 8th, 2009

[Peggy Taillon]

I'll take that. I think the challenges are daunting, but there are tremendous opportunities to actually shift our approaches, and I thank you very much for your comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

I want to thank all of you for being with us here today, and I do certainly want to tell you that we all, as committee members, appreciate your patience with the vote and the interruption. Thank you for staying later.

We'll thank all the witnesses and then we'll go right to Mr. Mulcair's motion.

Colleagues, Mr. Mulcair, we will move immediately to the motion, and you should all have a copy of Mr. Mulcair's motion. I will ask him to present it to the committee, please.

Mr. Mulcair, the floor is yours.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We are moving that this committee hold meetings to hear witnesses and further study the issue of pensions, that is to say how to protect the retirement income of Canadians. This is a major concern.

I had the opportunity to discuss with my colleagues Mr. Menzies and Mr. McCallum how we could make the best possible use of the committee's time. Mr. Menzies, for example, informs me that things are coming from the finance ministers. That could be a little too late for our proceedings. Mr. McCallum pointed out to me earlier that certain parts of the work were being carried out. I'm going to wait for Mr. McCallum to join us because this concerns the suggestion he made to me while we were waiting for the votes. We've done some useful work, Mr. Chairman: we've joined forces and we've discussed matters.

I want to tell you that the subject, not the mechanism, is what is most important for us. We want to address these issues as soon as possible, but since the committee already has other items on the agenda, the best solution would be Mr. McCallum's. Essentially—and I hope I'm not misrepresenting his thinking—he has suggested that in the context of the business already scheduled, in which people will also be talking to us about pensions, we focus a little more on pensions, which would avoid a duplication of efforts and would also enable us to handle the matter more quickly. Otherwise, we'll be forced to wait for the other business we've scheduled for the parliamentary committee. I think it's an excellent idea. I'm going to let Mr. McCallum explain what it's about.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Mulcair.

We'll go to Mr. Menzies, please.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I appreciate the way we've been discussing this in our limited time.

We certainly support Mr. Mulcair's motion in principle, but I'm concerned that it's going to get way too broad and that under this language we would have witnesses come expecting us to interfere in provincial jurisdictions. We only regulate 7% of the private pension plans in this country. My concern is that they'll come here with expectations that we can interfere in the provinces, and I don't think we want to set up that false expectation. The other issue will be how pensions are treated under CCAA. That's an industry file. Bankruptcy and insolvency is another industry file. We'll get back to whether it is an industry issue. Should industry be looking at it? Should we be looking at it? I would like to propose an amendment, if I can just quickly read it out. I would view this as a friendly amendment to your motion, Mr. Mulcair:

That the committee hold meetings to hear witnesses and further study the issue of pensions and how to protect the retirement income of Canadians. These meetings should take place, as committee business allows, only after members have had sufficient time to study the findings of the research working group on retirement income adequacy that will be presented at the meeting of Canada's federal/provincial/territorial finance ministers to take place in Whitehorse on the 17th of December.

It is agreeing with the content of the motion. December 17 is the finance ministers meeting, and that report will be provided on overall retirement income adequacy. That's a good time to take a look at that so that we're not replowing the same ground. That's my suggestion for a friendly amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay, the amendment is in order. The discussion will now be on the amendment.

I have Mr. Pacetti on the motion. Do you want to address the amendment, Mr. Pacetti?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I can speak to the motion and to the amendment.

I think every time we try to make it more complex or we restrict our motions, we're just causing ourselves problems and grief for nothing. I think this motion is redundant to begin with, but I have no problem supporting it. We do have a study we're undertaking right now on credit stability, and we did already add pensions to it. I think we can just continue that study. If we find that there is encroachment on provincial jurisdiction, we're big boys and realize that we're not going to take into account any recommendations that are made along those lines. But that's never prevented this committee, or any other committee, from hearing people.

I'd just like to bring to your attention that we do have pre-budget consultations going on, and there are groups that have come and talked to us about retirement income, and they will continue to talk to us about retirement income. I don't think we should exclude that testimony or those testimonies from what we're going to be considering later. I also want to bring to the attention of the committee that there's a poverty study going on in the human resources committee, and they're also looking at pensions. We can also talk to our own colleagues.

This does not prevent us from looking at pensions. Putting in the restriction of a date, such as December 17, is just going to handcuff the committee for no reason. Committees are independent. I think we should just pass this motion and go on with our day.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Pacetti.

Monsieur Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chairman, the problem is not necessarily adopting or not adopting the motion. We intend to examine the problems. It's a matter of feasibility.

We already have two studies under way, one on access to credit, which we have not yet completed, and another on credit cards conducted jointly with the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. As I told you, we first have to see whether it's feasible.

I wonder whether we shouldn't refer this to the steering committee for it to see how this could be done. We could make a suggestion on how to integrate all these matters, perhaps somewhat as Mr. McCallum suggested. The steering committee could examine the matter and, at a future meeting, suggest that we do it in such and such a way.

We aren't opposed to that, but we have a lot on our plate.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci.

On that point, as chair, I've been trying to get the committee to plow through as many witnesses as we can for pre-budget consultation, but we should be having a subcommittee fairly soon here.

Mr. McCallum, please.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

I agree with Massimo that we don't need to put a time restriction on this. To me, it boils down to two things. I'd be prepared to support the motion as it's written, but in a sense, Massimo is right that it's redundant, and in the other study we have under way on the financial crisis, we've already heard pension witnesses.

We're not restricted in that study to particular dimensions of the pension issue, so an alternative would be for you to withdraw the motion on the understanding that we would have substantial numbers of additional pension-related witnesses in the context of the other study. But if Mr. Mulcair nevertheless wants to proceed with the motion, I'm happy to vote for it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Menzies, please, and then Mr. Mulcair.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Sorry, Thomas, I didn't mean to jump in, in front of you there.

I'm comfortable with that too. I just wanted to highlight the fact that there is this process going on.

We certainly don't want to skirt this issue at all. That's not our intent. If Mr. Mulcair is comfortable with going ahead with this suggestion--and we've already started and have already had some witnesses--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

What's the date, for the committee's information?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

The federal-provincial-territorial finance ministers meeting is on December 17 and 18, in Whitehorse.

Massimo is right; we have lots of work to do. Monsieur Laforest highlighted some of the things we haven't completed yet. So we're almost looking as though we have ADD here.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Menzies.

We'll go to Mr. Mulcair.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Status of Women is also looking at pensions for senior women, so I'd just put that on the record.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you, Mr. Pacetti.

Mr. Mulcair.

[Thomas Mulcair, NDP, Outremont, QC]

I like the idea of taking Mr. Menzies' motion and adopting it now, because we're not looking at doing anything until next year anyway with his motion. So we'll be on the record as saying we want to study it.

In the meantime, nothing at all stops us practically—because it's not attached to a motion—from trying to bring in people who can enhance our debate, discussions, and reflection on pensions in the framework of our discussion on financial crisis. One doesn't stop the other. So let's adopt Mr. Menzies' friendly amendment, because we're on the record as a committee as saying we want to study this.

I actually think it's smart to wait. If we're eight weeks out from having a very substantive report that some of the best minds have looked at, I don't think we're doing ourselves a favour if we try to start anything before that.

We'll be on the record. We'll say we're waiting to see that. We're setting the time for anything more substantial, specifically on pensions qua pensions, and John's suggestion remains valid. We can still try to get some good people before our committee in the framework of the other one.

If that's the case, I'll accept Ted Menzies' friendly amendment, if the Liberals and the Bloc are willing to go along with it. In that case, I think we'll be fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Thank you.

I want to thank you all for your interventions. They were very good.

I want to call the vote, then, on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

(Motion as amended agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you very much.

We'll see you this afternoon.