First of all, because employers have to stop taking advantage of workers and commit to complying with provincial and federal legislation, to paying workers' severance, separation and pension plans. Yes, we want to be secured creditors. Our severance and termination pay must be secured claims. I repeat: what they're doing is abominable.
Since when are workers paid in shares? The multinational is going to pay us our separation and severance in shares, up to 36.5% of what it owes us. Find me a Metro store, an IGA store, a car dealership, a city, that will accept shares as payment? That's how the multinational wants to pay us, 36% and not 100% of the value of our separation and severance pay.
The multinationals aren't penalized by Bill C-501. This one doesn't have enough teeth. It has to be given some. The multinationals come after our materials and don't invest in infrastructure. They transport them to other countries, if not to other continents. Bill C-501 is so weak that three-quarters of Canada's forest mills are under the protection of the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. It's not just AbitibiBowater, Fraser or White Birch. There was Smurfit-Stone. Some are lining up to be placed under the act's protection, Domtar, Catalyst Paper, in the west, or Cascades. They're all lining up. The entire sector will be under protection because these companies won't be able to compete with the companies that are restructured under the CCAA, not to mention all the other sectors of the Canadian industry that will want to take advantage of the same opportunity. This is one of the reasons why the bill has to be given some teeth.
I've also heard it said many, many times that what happened in the case of the renewal of AbitibiBowater's collective agreement is good. We saved the pension plans. It should not be forgotten that the Quebec Pension Plan overrode its provincial regulations. Instead of repaying the $1.3 billion in balance benefits over five years, it has extended them over 10 years.
There's also the fact that we've always stayed in a benefit plan. We stuck with the traditional system, but they're starting a new plan at AbitibiBowater through the CEP. It's still a benefit plan. Workers and employers will pay more. I'm not a banker, but everyone knows that it takes 15% to administer a plan. They're going to allocate 18% to it and 3% will be held back. The employer will no longer be exempt from paying premiums. It will have to continue paying its fixed share into the plan to rebuild its solvency.
Workers have abandoned the equivalent of 17% of their working conditions when the last collective agreement was renewed in 2010, 10% of payroll and 7% benefits, not to mention what the Government of Quebec did to protect this multinational. Don't come and tell me that, if we put some teeth into Bill C-501, we're going to force the multinationals into bankruptcy. That's false. In the case of AbitibiBowater, what the Quebec Pension Plan and workers did, no banking institution would have been able to do. If the Quebec Pension Plan and workers hadn't done it, that would have been the end of AbitibiBowater.
To thank us, company officials want to award themselves bonuses. Fortunately, the media are reporting this morning that the restructuring of the business has been accepted in the United States. We know why that was being blocked. The Americans didn't want Canadian managers to award themselves bonuses. These companies come and exploit our natural resources in Canada. They have no right—no right—to dump workers. These are Canadian citizens, and they have no right to dump them as they've done. It isn't happening just in Gatineau, but in Dolbeau, Beaupré, the Belgo plant in Shawinigan, in Mackenzie, Grand Falls, Newfoundland, and Thunder Bay as well. It's not true; it isn't clear. They don't have to do that.
For all these reasons, gentlemen, we think Bill C-501 has to be given some teeth, for the workers' sake.
Thank you very much for listening to us.