Finance Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[Monique Moreau]

Or if it was what, sorry?

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Retire in poverty. Having to use food banks, having to make a decision between paying for medication or food, deciding whether or not to pay for hydro; was that ever a question?

[Monique Moreau]

No, we did not ask that question.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Okay.

In regard to the responses—and this follows up on Mr. Ouellette's question—have you ever polled your membership about the cost to businesses of providing their own pension plans?

[Monique Moreau]

Yes, that I have. I can tell you that the vast majority of that research was when the PRPPs were being introduced several years ago. A third of our members said that once they were rolled out they would be interested in providing a PRPP to their businesses. We know that—

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

But they haven't.

[Monique Moreau]

The PRPPs aren't in force across the country yet. The only ones that are in place are in Quebec, and the uptake there is mandated for five or more. I'm not sure if that would answer your question. I believe that for the four other provinces, it's a technical federal issue that's holding them up. They have provincial buy-in already, but they're waiting for approval from the federal government. The other provinces have not put forth legislation yet.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Yussuff and Mr. Roberts, when Mr. Ouellette was asking his questions, you also looked like you wanted to comment on the idea of private pension plans, and I'm assuming, their decline. Did you want to add to this?

[Chris Roberts]

There was a specific question from the member about pension coverage in small and medium-sized enterprises. According to Statistics Canada, about 2% of micro and small businesses offer registered pension plans.

[Hassan Yussuff]

To respond to the point about the PRPP, Quebec is not the only province that has legislation that allows it to be part of the system. Every place else where the legislation exists to set up a PRPP account, not a single employer has taken advantage of it. Again, there's a bit of a fallacy. Give them this great tool and magically people are going to do what? By the way, the tool is no different than an RRSP account.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

I think Ms. Moreau wants in, and then we'll come back.

[Monique Moreau]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Briefly, this may be misinformation, but my understanding is that things are being held up federally on a technical issue for those four provinces that do have the legislation in place.

A difference is that PRPPs are meant to be really low cost, unlike RRSPs, which can be very expensive to administer. The legislation was designed to make them low cost and portable, to give all Canadians a different option for savings.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

Ms. Trask, I just wanted to ask you to clarify. Your organization does support the enhancement of the CPP. I just want to make sure I understood correctly. I think you mentioned in your response to a question that the concern is that, while retirees right now won't benefit, given the pressures on seniors and retirees today, and although this government has made financial enhancements there, you don't want to see future generations constrained, as some seniors are today with the current conditions, and fear that people are not even saving as much today as they might have done previously.

[Pat Trask]

That's true. A lot of these people are concerned for their own children and their grandchildren when they get older. That's where this is going to benefit down the road more. The seniors in general in Saskatchewan are very concerned about that, as well as in my own little apartment building, which has 240 people. I dare say only a third of them have a car now because, on limited income, they can't afford a car. They can't afford their medicine. Yes, it's critical that they have more money when they get older.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

Mr. Duvall, you have the last round of questions, unless Mr. Champagne has one.

Mr. Duvall.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you.

I have just a quick question to Mr. Janson. Right now the CPP delivers a pretty secure pension. They know they're going to get it at the end, anyway, but they have no idea how much they're saving towards that CPP pension or what they can expect to receive when they retire. Do you think CPP should improve its reporting to Canadians? If so, how?

[Mark Janson]

It's a great question. To even know how much you're going to receive from CPP, you have to go on Service Canada and create a log-in to get your CPP statement. It's not something that's automatically sent to Canadians every year. We automatically see our deductions from our paycheques every two weeks, so we're aware of what's going in, but as you say, we're not aware of what will go out.

Typically, in a workplace pension plan, the plan administrator would have to provide an annual pension statement to every member saying this is how much you've put in, this is the amount in benefits you've earned to date, and this is your expected pension on retirement. I think it would be entirely appropriate for the CPP to do something similar so that we don't only see what's going out every two weeks, so we can prepare for what we will receive under the plan when we retire.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Champagne, do you have a quick question?

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

If there is time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Yes, there is.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank each one of you for being here with us today to present your testimony. Like you, I had the opportunity of travelling the country as parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance and hearing what people had to say about the improvement to the Canada Pension Plan.

I would like to put a question to the representatives of the CSN.

What do the members of your organization think about our approach, that is to say improving the plan for today's workers and also for those of tomorrow? Afterwards, M. Chair, if I still have some time left, I would also have a question for M. Yussuff.

Ms. Lévesque, how did your members view this announcement? Do they understand it well? Do they see the long term benefits for those who are joining the labour market today?

[Francine Lévesque]

In fact, the members of the CSN are very concerned by all of the issues having to do with retirement. In Quebec in particular, over the last few years there have been a host of reforms to pension plans. The current discussions in Canada to improve all of the pension plans, and retirement income, are of very great interest to our members. They find these issues interesting because they will affect everyone.

This will improve the basic income of workers when they retire. There is a public sector and a private sector, and certain enterprises do not have pension plans. The general pension plan therefore ensures that all Canadians and Quebeckers will see an improvement in their basic income upon retirement. For us, this involves the Quebec Pension Plan.

Those are the bases of our brief, which bears witness to the fact that people are pleased with this improvement and with this perspective that aims to ensure that everyone will have a better retirement income. However, we do have a concern, which is that the other pillars that are the foundation of people's retirement income are not as solid. We would like to avoid a situation whereby in improving the Canadian and Quebec pension plans, employers who already have pension plans in their enterprises, or even those who do not, distance themselves even more from these matters. We have observed this tendency for many years. Unfortunately, despite the actions of governments, the incomes of Canadians and Quebeckers have continued to deteriorate over the past few years.

In short, yes, people are in favour of the change and they appreciate it. They would even like us to do more, and take this work further.

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

Mr. Yussuff, you have a unique voice in our country, talking about employees and workers across our nation.

You talked about when we created CPP in this country and how this was a landmark in our history. Tell us how much you see, from your own perspective with your unique voice in this country, the enhancement to the CPP being as transformational as when we created it for Canadian workers.