Good morning, my name is Gordon St‑Gelais in Sept-Îles. I am president of the Comité des retraités de Mines Wabush with a company called Cliffs Natural Resources.
In May 2015, Cliffs put Wabush into bankruptcy. This resulted in the retirees losing their benefits, their drug and life insurance. Many pensioners, when they retire, stop paying for insurance because it costs more. So they keep the company insurance.
In December 2015, the actuary for the pension fund closed the fund because there was no more money coming in. Union retirees then lost 21% of their pension fund, and management lost 25%. People usually retire at about age 60 and normally have maybe 25 to 30 years to live. So the loss is huge because there's no more salary increase. Their pension is reduced by 21% or 25% all of a sudden for the rest of their lives. They also lose benefits. They have to pay more for medication and life insurance. The spouses are also affected. It's a big problem.
Since Sept‑Îles is a remote community and everyone thinks we live at the North Pole, we set up a committee in May 2015 to make representations. We had the support of the United Steelworkers. In October 2017, we went to Ottawa to support the previous bill sponsored by our member of Parliament, Marilène Gill. I hope that this time it will go further, because it's hard for retirees to live on a small pension, which is reduced and never increases.
We went to Ottawa and made representations. Several MPs certainly saw us and heard our arguments. This trip was beneficial for us because Cliffs saw us. We were invited on television and we made some noise to show that we still existed. In fact, the Cliffs people didn't believe that a group of retirees, ranging in age from 65 to 85, could travel by bus to Ottawa to make representations.
As a result of that event, Cliffs contacted us to begin negotiations. This was beneficial to us as we were able to recover some of our benefits and some of our pension fund. We were looking at a 21% loss to the union members and it went down to 7%. You may say that's a lot, but you have to remember that the pension amount is still fixed and the life expectancy is 30 years.
Retirees contributed to their pension fund. As Mr. Cooper was saying, it's part of the workers' salary that they didn't get. Normally, in a negotiation process, the employer says it's a salary that the employees receive, but in truth it's money that the company invests. They don't contribute to the fund when they are in trouble. These companies are still rich. Cliffs Mining is not poor.
We are constantly fighting to get the most for our retirees so that they can live with dignity, despite their medical or family problems.
Thank you for your attention and have a good day.