Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
For a number of years, I've been paying very close attention to this issue because a number of people in my riding were really impacted by Sears and its bankruptcy. They're still very traumatized by it.
I've also been very blessed that before politics I had about 20 years of experience in the business sector, particularly in biotech and in the banking industry. Again, I do quite a bit of reading and I do believe that companies know ahead of time whether they're going to be filing for bankruptcy and whether they're planning on restructuring. Often, I have found that employees are the last to learn, so I do believe that pensioners need some additional protection—far more than what exists right now. I do believe it needs to be 100% protected.
I do want to thank all the witnesses for being here. All of your presentations and answers are very important today, so thank you for being here and thank you for your patience.
My first question is for the Association of Canadian Pension Management.
I have a note from our Library of Parliament and it's very similar to what you were saying. It says:
Statistics Canada data shows that the percentage of paid workers covered by defined benefit pension plans in the private sector decreased from 21.3% in 2000 to 9.6 % in 2020. During that period, many employers have been abandoning their defined benefit pension plans in part because of the volatile and onerous funding requirements associated with such plans.
I guess my question for you is this: Is that the way it's going anyway, in terms of defined benefit plans being converted into defined contribution plans? I would like to hear your thoughts on that because I think you've made an argument that if this piece of legislation moves forward, it would actually accelerate defined benefits being cancelled.