Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Further to that, the beginning of the meeting is when we established the speaking order about when these motions will be heard. The first one has gone now. I think I was second on the list. We should maintain that decorum in how we do these things. Thank you very much.
The motion I want to put on the table has to do with the British national overseas pension.
I'll read the motion first and then describe a little of the stuff behind it.
It says:
That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee undertake a study of pension transferability and access to the Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) for Hong Kongers now residing in Canada; that the committee allocate one meeting to pursue this study; that the committee invite representatives of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, representatives of Global Affairs Canada, Manulife Financial, Sun Life Canada, immigrants from Hong Kong who have tried to move their funds from the MPF, as well as any other witnesses the committee deems relevant; and that the committee report its observations and recommendations to the House.
This I move in this motion.
I also want to go through a bit of the detail on this, because I know I have colleagues on this committee who are part of the Canada-Hong Kong Parliamentary Friendship Group. We hear a lot from groups that are very concerned about two Canadian companies in particular when certain parties are emigrating from Hong Kong to Canada. Sun Life and Manulife Financial are the ones that oversee part of this fund in Hong Kong. It is supposed to be transferred when people move overseas, but that's not happening.
We want to gain an understanding about what is happening here when only some people are able to access their pensions when they move from Hong Kong to a different jurisdiction, particularly Canada. These are two Canadian companies, obviously with Hong Kong subsidiaries. It's about understanding how this is happening and what the pressures are to make sure these people can get their mandatory provident funds out of the old jurisdiction and into the place where they're going to retire. It's very important that we have a reciprocal system so that people moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction know the laws that govern the funds they've invested in pensions in their old country and how those come to the places they immigrate to.
Now, we know we're going to be facing more immigration from Hong Kong to Canada. This continues, and this is something on everybody's radar screen. I implore my colleagues on the other side of this committee who are in the Canada-Hong Kong Parliamentary Friendship Group to come to some resolution here so that people coming to Canada have certainty about how their funds are going to arrive from their pension funds—the savings they've been mandated to withdraw from their earnings in Hong Kong.
I can go on and explain this further if anybody doesn't understand it, but this is a service we're going to be doing for people coming to Canada. I think it's very important and will be very illuminating. We'll get some people outside the usual bureaucracy we have here. We'll get some Canadian companies in here telling us about how they operate the financial arrangements they manage between Hong Kong and Canada.
I hope this motion has been clearly stated. I will let somebody second it.