Finance Committee on June 1st, 2010

[A voice]

Oh, oh!

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

I can react as I see fit. When someone insults you, you defend yourself.

People are saying they cannot understand why we are defending 1,450 workers. How many workers do you need, Mr. Généreux? How many workers do you need?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Paillé—

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

Yes, this is a comment and I am coming to my questions, but we feel insulted, Mr. Chairman.

How many workers does it take to be uncaring? How many jobs? How many months? In our opinion, that kind of behaviour is unacceptable.

People come here and are asked why they don't ask the province for help! But this is a federal statute, and as long as we are here, we will keep on defending the idea of amending federal statutes! And anyway, it is the Canada Revenue Agency that is responsible for giving the 22%—not the municipality, not the province, but the federal government. That is why these people are here. Either you should get that through your head, or apologize. I am having trouble deciding which is worse: insensitivity or incompetence; I will let you choose.

Also, Mr. St-Michel, you said you needed time. You are here to be heard, so take your time and comment now on what Ms. Blanchard and Mr. Fréchette said. You can forget about commenting on Mr. Hamilton's remarks.

[Pierre St-Michel]

Thank you very much. You are right that the problem will resolve itself by attrition.

[Daniel Paillé, Bloc, Hochelaga, QC]

It will die off.

[Pierre St-Michel]

In the last five years, people back home… My pastime is attending funerals. Every two or three months, another one passes away. I want you all to be aware of that.

I would like to respond to what Mr. Hamilton said. For all the years I was working, I never opened an RRSP or invested in shares or anything like that. My employer told me that we had a guaranteed pension fund and that I had to contribute to it. I had no choice! They told me it was guaranteed and that I would leave with a pension, that I would not be rich, but that I would have a decent pension. But they lied! They took part of my salary. You may say that it was deferred salary, but it was my salary all the same. But they didn't give it to me; they gave it to the employer. They gave him contribution holidays that he was not entitled to.

I can assure you that we are also knocking on the province's door. A bill was tabled—Bill 194—which is along the same lines. It was introduced when there was a minority government by the MNA for the riding, Sylvain Simard. At this point, the government is saying that, if the bill is passed in Ottawa, it will harmonize its own legislation and do the same. We hope to be able to raise your awareness, so that you acknowledge our losses.

I would like to add one other thing, without wanting to sound pretentious. We had stable jobs, and we were lucky. We have nothing against social programs like Unemployment Insurance, which has now become Employment Insurance, work sharing and all the rest, but we never took advantage of these programs because we had full-time jobs. We feel we made a major contribution to society, and today, we are knocking at your door. I can't tell you how much I would like there to be a response and a recognition of the contribution made by these people for 40 years, as well as the fact that they are in the final chapter of their lives, since the average age is over 70. I appeal to all of you to do something for those who are still around by passing this bill. If the wording is problematic—I do not know whether it is or not, since I am not a lawmaker—then let's correct it so that it applies to defined benefit plans such as our own, as was said earlier. The Quebec legislation has been changed. Following our experiences, Bill 30 came into force and pension plans are now required to have a solvency ratio of 107%. I don't know whether there will be other cases like ours that slip through the cracks, but there certainly will not be many anymore.

That is what I wanted to say. I want to thank the members of the Bloc Québécois for their support. I would also like to thank the Liberals, who have always supported us up until now, as has the NDP. I also would like to thank Conservative members, and I hope we will manage to convince them. You are in government and you see the kind of predicament we are in. Even if the Bloc drafted this bill, I am sure that the changes you would like to make towards the same end are feasible.

Thank you; that is what I wanted to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Thank you.

Mr. Langlois, you have 30 seconds.

[René Langlois]

Mr. St-Michel referred to the average age. In 2002, when the pension funds were slashed, the average age was 67 or 69. Now it is 76 or 77. There were 1,200 of us initially, but a hundred or more have died since then. The average age has gone up, and the number of people who will be paid or benefit from the 22% credit has greatly diminished.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Merci.

Mr. Menzies, please.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses who have come here today.

Ms. Blanchard, please don't ever feel humiliated to come here to a committee. We're happy to have you here. We need to hear what is happening to our constituents all across the country. Whether you're in Quebec or Nova Scotia, your comments are credible. You have every right to be here, so please don't feel humiliated to be here appearing in front of us. We do appreciate that.

Mr. Beaudoin, your association came to our town hall in Quebec City. Forgive me, you may have been there yourself, but we do appreciate that.

But I'm hearing so much and I wouldn't ordinarily get partisan here...until I saw the display from Mr. Paillé. What he didn't lack in sincerity, he certainly overcame with volume.

We have asked the Bloc to participate in communicating what their constituents are telling them about overall retirement income, and I'm sorry, but we've had nothing. We've had not one ounce of feedback on what their constituents are saying. You say they've been supportive; I would argue they haven't. We've reached out to the Bloc to contribute to this, and the Bloc doesn't quite understand that we represent all Canadians. We hear your story, and it's a troubling story, but we hear it from all across this country. What we're trying to do is put forward something that will help all Canadians.

Please understand that we have a real challenge ahead of us. If we decide on that for one group or for two groups, if we approve a piece of legislation for them, how does that impact the rest of the country? That's not to say we shouldn't do that, but we have that dilemma.

To go back to Mr. Malcolm Hamilton, your comment is what troubles me. Do we then take the responsibility away from a plan sponsor so that they would just find it easier to walk away from a pension plan? Can you explain that? Am I misinterpreting that? The way this legislation is written, it would be an incentive for a plan to fold and leave its plan members stranded.

[Malcolm Hamilton]

I don't know if it's an incentive for plans to fold, because nobody likes folding and nobody likes going bankrupt--

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

But it's not an disincentive not to. It takes the onus off the company, am I right?

[Malcolm Hamilton]

Well, I'll tell you where it's going to create complications. It's going to create complications with the guarantee fund. If the guarantee fund is paying pensions that wouldn't have been paid, then people aren't getting credit that the federal government would have paid, and instead the province is going to have to put up the money, so they'll try to figure out how they can be second payer. The whole thing will get complicated.

It's very bad when people don't get the pensions they were promised. There's a whole debate going on about that. This isn't that debate. This isn't about preventing pension funds from leaving people high and dry. This is about compensating people who are left high and dry. If the other task succeeds, this will prove not to be very expensive and not to be very necessary.

For me, though, the issue here is... And Mr. Paillé said it very well. He said that you can't compare miseries and yet he thinks some miseries are much more important than other miseries. There's never anything to suggest that the people who are victimized by embezzlers or by bad investments or by bad markets in RRSPs deserve equal consideration, and I'm mystified as to why that is.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Wallace has a question.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted a couple of clarifications.

Monsieur Fréchette, I absolutely believe that you have the right and the responsibility to come to talk to us about the issues. I know you didn't misinterpret what I was saying before, but around here, the Bloc Québécois talk a lot about Quebec jurisdiction and the federal government staying out. I don't blame you for coming; you have the absolute right to do it. I was talking about my Bloc colleagues.

Another piece was mentioned, too, that I want to go on the record on. WE will be seeing the... As you've all said, the bill does have some issues in terms of its wording. Clearly even the movers of the motion believe it needs improvement if it had a chance, but the Parliamentary Budget Officer will be here, and they did provide a report.

There were questions about what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, which was that in effect the cost estimates by the government, which are $10 billion per annum, and by the Bloc, which are $3 million to $5 million, are related through definition... Then it says further on in the report that “the Government estimates appear to be reliable”.

So I was not misleading the group by saying it was reliable. It is reliable. It all depends on your definition. Mr. Hamilton clearly indicated that it would depend on how you define who gets that back.

Now, on the question I have, Monsieur Paillé is great at using up his five or seven minutes with a big long speech. He's even better at it when it's on camera, but my question is to Monsieur Beaudoin.

Did the Bloc Québécois--

[Bernard Généreux, Conservative, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC]

And he's laughing right now--

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Yes.

Did you, representing retirees... Have they provided a synopsis or a paper or a position to your organization? Have they met with your organization about the pension issue in Canada and in Quebec?

We've been dealing with it for three months here at this committee and I haven't seen anything from them yet. I'm wondering if you have it so that you could provide it to me, because we certainly don't have it from them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay. Sorry, Mr. Wallace--

[An hon. member]

Un point d'ordre--

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

I'll just explain to our witnesses that when the bells start ringing, I have to adjourn the committee unless I have unanimous consent.

Do I have unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Rajotte]

Okay.

Monsieur Fréchette.

[Gaston Fréchette]

I only need one minute.

If, just as the federal Bill C-36 stipulates, retirees were considered to be preferred creditors, we would not be appearing before you today. That is the federal government's responsibility. It is your statute.

If we met with the Bloc member of Parliament, it is because he was democratically elected in our riding. We could not go and see the Conservative candidate, because he was defeated. I even tried to become a Conservative member of Parliament. I still have my [Inaudible—Editor] in my locker. I have nothing against you. The thing is that it simply makes no sense not to pass a bill because of political squabbles.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.