Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, for the opportunity to address you today.
I'm here representing the Multi-Employer Benefit Plan Council of Canada, a non-profit organization whose mandate is to represent the interests of Canadian multi-employer pension and benefit plans with provincial and federal governments regarding proposed or existing legislation.
The trust funds that MEBCO speaks on behalf of cover well over one million Canadian workers, plus their families. MEBCO's volunteer board of directors is elected from all professions and disciplines involved in multi-employer plans, including union and employer trustees, professional administrators, actuaries, lawyers, accountants, and benefit consultants.
MEBCO has provided a written submission on Bill C-377, which provides the details of our concerns with this bill. We believe that this bill will have a detrimental and unjustified impact on pension and benefit plans. MEBCO believes that the bill goes far beyond its intended objective of transparency and accountability and would impose enormous costs and other implications for many private and public entities doing business in Canada.
The bill proposes to require disclosure of personal information, including personal health, medical, and beneficiary information, which conflicts with the legislation already in place. Further, the bill proposes to duplicate existing financial disclosure requirements applicable to pension and benefit trusts. We fail to see the merit of disclosing any of this information to individuals other than those who participate in the pension or benefit plan. Currently, any such personal information is not disclosed to anyone but the member.
The bill includes a definition of labour trusts that is broad and would capture any benefit fund that has any unionized beneficiaries, including public sector plans and any applicable public or private entity. Pension and benefit plans are already highly regulated and subject to rigid and rigorous privacy standards. They are also subject to extensive disclosure requirements under other provincial and federal legislation, including reporting to the Canada Revenue Agency. These are in addition to stringent fiduciary duties assumed by the pension and benefit plan trustees, which obligate them to act solely in the best interest of the plan and its beneficiaries.
Bill C-377 will create additional and unnecessary red tape for a sector that is already in a difficult state. Existing legislation already ensures that plan members and other stakeholders receive sufficient information and disclosure concerning these plans. The cost of providing this unnecessary information may be significant, depending on the specifics required. No matter what the cost, any expenses related to such reporting takes money away from the purpose of these trusts, which is to provide financial security to workers and their families.
There will also be additional costs incurred by the government to administer these new requirements. I don't have a sense as to the magnitude of these increased governmental costs, but I understand that the provinces have expended significant resources collecting such information.
We also have significant concern about the invasion of privacy for plan members. Disclosure of any transaction in excess of $5,000 would require trustees to publicly disclose the most personal of information on plan members for payments of pensions, disability benefits, death benefits, drugs, dental benefits, and many other types of benefits. This is just wrong.
Further, these trusts are large and enter into numerous financial transactions daily. Reporting on all financial transactions in excess of $5,000 would result in voluminous reporting. It also may require the disclosure of confidential business strategies for investment, legal, and financial advisers retained by the trusts. This may impede the ability of such trusts to retain qualified, successful advisers.
Finally, two trusts of the same size and same experience will result in one being subject to the bill and one not, simply because one has union members participating and the other doesn't.