You have to look at the pensioners' careers. Workers retire at about 55 or 60, with the idea that, after working all their lives, for 30 or 40 years—that was the case in our days—they will be able to count on the pension fund to which they have contributed and pay off their debts before retiring. They are guaranteed to have a pensioner's salary for the rest of their lives, usually until the age of 82 or 83. Some live longer and some live shorter.
In our case, Cliffs went bankrupt because it made mistakes in its mine purchases. They bought the Bloom Lake mine. It cost them a lot of money, because they paid $4 billion for one mine. To get rid of it, they bankrupted the Bloom Lake mine, waited three months, and then bankrupted the Wabush mine in my area, which opened in 1960 and was still very productive. Those retirees were left with a 21% to 25% loss of their pension funds for the rest of their lives.
We must not think of a retirement as striking gold. It's not a lot of money. If someone retired in 1980, the amount in 1980 and the amount in 2015 are not the same. There's a big difference between the two amounts. If they lose 21% of that amount, they end up with a tiny income that is almost equivalent to the poverty line. It's even worse if you take away their drug coverage or life insurance. In our case, the provincial government's life insurance is $2,500. After taxes, that gives us $1,800 to bury our dead. I live in a northern region, and I can tell you that it is extremely expensive.
Those are the problems it causes us. We believe that all pension funds should be equal. Bill C‑253 would help level the playing field and ensure that we have a pension fund that values us.