I'll endeavour to do that.
I'm here today as the former president of the Hamilton Specialty Bar Slater Steel Salaried Pensioners Association to talk about Bill C-501.
I want everybody in this room to be fully aware that nobody from the Slater Steel group is going to get any benefit out of this, because our plan has been wound up. What I would like to point out is that when our plan was wound up, while the pension side of the plan meant I lost 23% of my income, when you add to that the compounding effect that I lost all of the benefits that I was supposed to get for life, the net effect is 35% of my pension.
Now, my pension was better than average within the company.
I'm also the president of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners, and as president of CFP I'm here on behalf of the 15 pension associations, with memberships exceeding 150,000.
We as a group certainly hope that all members of Parliament in attendance today are here with a truly open mind, even though my own MP has issued an e-mail that indicates that's not truly the case for everybody.
There are some people in this country who think that pensioners on private pensions are fat cats, or, because some are or were members of unions, they don't deserve any consideration. Neither comment is either correct or fair.
I'm going to provide you some simple statistics from the Bell pensioner association. They total some 32,000 members in their defined benefit plan. Their pensioners' average age is 68. Their average annual pension is the grand sum of $22,000. For the survivors, their average age is 74 years of age. Their average pension is less than $15,000.
So let's put a little bit of an equation there: take $15,000 and 10% is $1,500; 20% is $3,000; and 30% is $4,500. Now, for most of the people in this room, if your income dropped by $4,500, you would complain bitterly. But for those pensioners, if it dropped $4,500, they're in a disastrous set of circumstances.
And I might point out that the Bell pension plan is more generous than most.
I would also point out that our pension plans are nothing but deferred wages. And I can state that at one point in time, when the marketplace went south for steel, the company did not give out salary increases. They said to the employees, “We can't give out salary increases this year, but we're going to modify your pension plan and improve it a little bit.” That meant that they were giving a little bit, but they were delaying how they were having to pay it out.
Now, if you're protecting current employees at a certain level for that last little bit of their payments, their salaries, why should we be treated any differently? To do so is unfair. On that basis alone, we should in all fairness be granted “preferred” creditor status—and I read the word “preferred” as opposed to “secured” or “super-priority” for a very good reason. We certainly feel we should be ahead of the bond holders and the junk bond lenders or any unsecured creditors.
The other thing I'd like to point out is, as a member of a DB plan, there was a limitation that was placed on the amounts that we could contribute to registered plans, such as RRSPs. That limitation reduced the amount that we could have done compared to other people. Hence, if we're forced to take a reduced pension, then we're being victimized twice over: once on the pension itself and secondly due to the RRSP limitations.
I don't have to talk about what Diane Urquhart has said because she's been here today; you've heard it. Mr. Manley and his fellow CEO associates take exception to a lot of what has been said and they certainly would like to not change the plans. In fact, my MP has stated it could be as high as a 35% cost. Yet you heard this morning what Diane said. Interestingly enough, they haven't provided the studies that would say it would be much higher. Diane Urquhart has been very open about where her studies were done and how.
Preferred status is the norm in many countries. Yes, it's not the status in all countries, but in many of the countries where it is not the status there are other mechanisms put in place to take care of failed pension plans.