Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to all committee members for the opportunity to address you today.
I am sure many of you are wondering why I have been given the opportunity to speak to a committee formed to discuss future trade agreements between the U.K. and Canada. I hope in the next few minutes to clearly explain why we feel there is an important connection.
I may be one voice, but I say “we” because I speak on behalf of approximately 136,000 British pensioners who have chosen Canada as their home in retirement. The vast majority of these people, like me, emigrated many years ago in response to Canada's request for certain skilled labour, such as nurses, teachers, firefighters and tradespeople, for the booming oil industry in the 1970s. Others came to Canada, after working all their lives in the U.K., to be with family members who had already emigrated.
Before leaving the U.K., we worked and we paid mandatory contributions into the British state pension scheme, which is the equivalent of CPP, assuming that upon retirement we would be treated equally to all British pensioners residing around the world.
However, we are not treated equally because we have chosen to live in Canada, and indeed neither are pensioners in most Commonwealth countries. This results in almost half a million pensioners never receiving the annual uprating in their British pensions. We are known as frozen pensioners.
You may ask why.
One answer is that the U.K. has continuously refused requests from Canada's officials to sign a reciprocal agreement to stop this discrimination. They argue that pension increases are to take into account inflation in the U.K., but they ignore the fact that they already index pensions for half a million expats overseas in many countries, including, just to the south of us, the United States.
A recent U.K. House of Commons briefing paper covering frozen overseas pensions states that the unfreezing of British pensions in Canada did not arise during the negotiation of a social security agreement with Canada in 1959. This is not surprising. The pension payable overseas was only introduced in 1946. Movement around the world was in its infancy. There were very few people affected in 1959, but here we are 61 years later, and the U.K. still clings to this piece of history.
As more people started to be affected during the high inflation days of the 1960s, more and more United Kingdom MPs began to receive correspondence from pensioners abroad protesting the unfairness of the freezing policy. This protest has magnified over the years as travel around the globe has exploded.
Let me give you a couple of examples of the impact of this policy here in Canada.
Peter Duffey, a 95-year-old from Vancouver, lives only 300 yards from the U.S.A. border. He worked for 40 years in the U.K. He flew bombers in the Second World War and he still receives 52 pounds per week, as he has done for 30 years. A similar individual in the U.S.A, however, is paid 134 pounds. Anne Puckridge, 95, of Calgary—also a war veteran—receives only 72 pounds a week instead of 134 pounds.
Both of these seniors have been cheated out of thousands of pounds of their rightful pension, and the same is true of countless others of the 136,000 frozen pensioners in Canada.
The standard boilerplate response that we receive from the U.K. is that this is a policy that has been continued by successive governments for many years. However, having a history doesn't mean something is right. What was applicable 70 years ago isn't in today's world. If something is morally wrong, it is wrong, plain and simple.
Some years ago, our association joined forces with a similar group in Australia to begin a consolidated approach to seeking justice, and the International Consortium of British Pensioners now advocates on behalf of frozen pensioners everywhere in the world.
Only two months ago, Sir Roger Gale, a Conservative MP in the United Kingdom for 38 years and chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Frozen British Pensions, released a report that was extremely critical of his own government for perpetuating this practice.
For decades, the U.K. has maintained that they are not entering into any new agreements covering frozen pensions, yet with Brexit, the U.K. recently signed new pension agreements with 23 countries to ensure uprated pensions continue for all expats in EU countries, as indeed they should. The U.K. can no longer claim it's not entering into new agreements, and Canada should most certainly be given the opportunity to enter into an updated agreement under the current trade negotiation discussions.
Earlier this week, Sir Roger Gale invited more than 30 MPs from the U.K. and Canada to discuss ways to advance talks on the frozen pension issue, and a number of Canadian MPs, including pensions minister Deb Schulte, suggested that your upcoming trade negotiations would certainly be a good starting point.
On behalf of the 136,000 frozen pensioners residing in Canada, we would be extremely grateful if you could raise this issue with your counterparts across the pond. As Canada enters into trade negotiations with the U.K., worth an estimated $27 billion annually, there is no better time to have this critical discussion.
This policy is estimated to cost the Canadian economy close to half a billion dollars every year, and the onus to support those struggling on very low incomes should not fall on the backs of the Canadian taxpayers, as it currently does through subsidies such as GIS and welfare.
One recent high commissioner to the U.K. told us that the only thorn in an excellent bilateral relationship was that of frozen pensions in Canada. Surely one would have thought that as a major Commonwealth partner, Canada would have been the last place where this immoral, unjust and discriminatory practice could have been allowed to perpetuate for so long.
I hope that I have demonstrated that the current policy is a cost to Canada and deeply impacts the well-being of many of the most vulnerable in our society.
In conclusion, I realize that this issue might not appear to fall within the parameters of normal trade discussions, but now more than ever, your committee is in an excellent bargaining position to demand that the U.K. quickly respond to the recent official request from Canada to sign a social security agreement.
One definition of the word “trade” is to willingly give things or services and get other things or services in return.