Status of Women Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Your time is up, Ms. Wong.

Monsieur Desnoyers.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Given the statistics and figures in the CLC's documentation, the situation today is urgent: 40% of women are not even able to accumulate any pension income; and 60% do not have access to a workplace pension. That means that things will be a lot more than just difficult for these women in the future; basically, they will have to live below the poverty line. The way I see it, we must act now. I completely agree with you.

I have a question specifically to do with the national pension insurance program you mentioned. How will the program work? How will it be supported? Will it be a sort of guarantee fund, similar to the U.K. or the U.S.? We know that those funds, which may be specific or private funds, have not always worked so well. So I would like to hear your thoughts on how an insurance fund would work.

[Bernard Dussault]

Do you mean the insurance fund or the CLC's proposal?

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The CLC's proposal.

[Bernard Dussault]

Which is to double....

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Not the proposal to double benefits. The CLC suggested introducing a national pension insurance program.

[Bernard Dussault]

So I will let you answer.

[Barbara Byers]

I'm going to see if Monsieur Dussault wants to comment on this because of other discussions he has had. I'm not the expert on this. The expert has left to deal with child care and also to continue contributing to the pension plans for all of us.

What we're saying is, again, this is something that can be done that will provide protections for people, essentially.

I don't know if you want to comment.

[Bernard Dussault]

If you are referring to something other than the Canada Pension Plan, I really cannot comment.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I understand the principle behind a pension insurance system: the desire to avoid situations like that of Nortel led to talk of using bankruptcy legislation to protect pensioners.

I think that idea is even better, however, because we could set up a system where the Canadian government would guarantee pension plans. From what I understand, under such a system, people would pay into pension plans and those plans would be monitored more closely because there would be a sort of insurance policy.

We were talking about that earlier, an insurance policy. You work for that your entire life, and then you lose everything because of economic conditions. It gets even worse: women—and they are our focus today—are in even worse situations.

I think that would be a major asset. These are social choices we are making. We are talking about doubling the pension plan, doubling contributions, going from 25% to 50%. When we decided to create a healthcare system in Canada, you will recall that we had a nationwide debate. In Winnipeg, the debate was quite heated: doctors were against it; insurance companies were against it; basically, everyone was against it. This debate will be similar because we are talking about similar proposals.

I think that a government that stands up for these measures and an opposition that supports the government will help to make great strides. Yes, we will make progress; women will make progress, and that is what counts.

You can laugh at women on the other side all you like, but there is an urgent need to act on this issue. And we need to adopt positions that lead to better conditions for them.

I would like to hear your thoughts on the status of women in the few minutes remaining.

[Bernard Dussault]

I am better able to answer your question now. I misinterpreted what you meant at first.

There are two components. The CLC's proposal to double the CPP and the proposal to guarantee the CPP.

But I think you are referring more specifically to the current pension plan. It offers no guarantee, and the only way to get one is to pay for it. A mechanism for that does exist. When you contribute to a pension plan through an insurance company, that company can fully guarantee your pension for a very high price.

A separate guaranteed fund is just part of the solution. There have been instances where guaranteed funds were exhausted because losses outweighed what was in the fund. If you want a full guarantee, you have to go through an insurance company, and that costs a lot more, of course.

[Barbara Byers]

Certainly we can have Joel come back and talk to people in more detail.

I don't have the pages in the French version, but if you do look at our longer document, beginning on page 16 in the English version, it's the third point, about protecting Canadian pensions through a federal system of pension insurance. It gives you an idea of why we need it and how it would work.

As it says, it would be a way to “adopt abandoned pensions when an employer shuts down permanently”. It's a fund that “insures a base floor of pension benefits when an employer restructures during bankruptcy proceeding and is unable to make good a solvency deficit”, and so on. So I think it's fairly well laid out there.

Again, once you've had a chance to look at it, maybe someone who's much more expert in those kinds of details can come back.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

It would be useful to have some more documentation, if possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

That would be great, because we have now gone to six minutes on this one.

We now have Madam Mathyssen again.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you for a spirited discussion. I've appreciated it.

I would like to say that I believe the generations that went before us built the infrastructure--the health care, the education system, the services that present and future generations will enjoy and benefit and achieve great opportunity from. I think there's a little bit of quid pro quo here.

I had a sense that you were pre-empted in regard to the question of whether wealthy seniors benefit more in an increased CPP regime. My sense is that the income tax system would probably take care of that, but I wanted to give you an opportunity to respond, Monsieur Dussault.

[Bernard Dussault]

This is not really a matter of whether wealthier persons would benefit more, because anyone who has a salary of, let's say, $50,000--if you consider that a rich person--would get a benefit equal to 50% of $50,000. Someone with a salary of $25,000 would get a benefit equal to 50%. So it's what I meant when I said give and take; everybody gets the benefit in proportion to the money they put in. A richer person gets more in absolute terms, but relatively speaking, everybody gets the same benefit in terms of proportional equity.

I just want to make sure that there is no misinterpretation of what we mean. Do richer persons get more? Yes, they do get more, but they put more into the plan too.

[Barbara Byers]

Just to add to that, the reality is that people with higher incomes who can afford to now contribute to RRSPs are doing better because they're getting a tax break as well, which somebody at a lower income who doesn't have a pension plan doesn't get.

Again, I go back to why we think there needs to be a summit, so that we can start to sort some of these details out so that people feel that what we're developing is a better system for all, not addressed to only one group or another.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

My riding is the second poorest riding in Ontario, and the reality is that there are a lot of poor seniors. I have about 9,000 seniors in my riding, and a lot of them have been compelled to go back to work after they've retired. They're Wal-Mart greeters; they're taking up jobs because their pensions are not adequate.

Now, it's been suggested in this committee that they do that by choice. I'm wondering what your experience is in regard to those who are finding at age 68 or 69 that they can't make ends meet.

[Dan Braniff]

I think we should all be looking at that and considering other methods of improving the predicament of these people.

In terms of this discussion about the rich and the poor, of course I'm well aware of some people who don't worry about a pension plan or their RRSP. They have money; they'll make it anyway. I think we want this thing to be all-inclusive.

The thing we have to remember in all this is that it's very important for us to institute a system that gives people the feeling of self-sufficiency, and stability, and self-reliance. When that happens.... I've heard figures on what the value of volunteerism is in our society. I've been a volunteer all my life; it's kind of in my blood. It's why I'm here today. I mean, I could be doing other things. I think you'll find the people who are able to volunteer in this respect are people who already have the comfort of financial security.

I don't know, it's trillions of dollars that we're getting out of the voluntary sector, and they don't get tax breaks on that. You have to ask, who are these people? Can the person who's worrying about the next meal be a volunteer? Well, some of them are, and they volunteer at hospitals and so on, but I think that generally it's people who already have the comfort of stability in their income.

The other thing that is being debated as we are sitting here at this table is longevity. There are predictions now that people are going to live to 200 years. So don't try to look too far ahead, but I think we're going to have a different system where people are going to take sabbaticals, they're going to go back to work. In some respects, I work harder now than I ever did in my life, but I'm doing it at my pace and on my terms.

[Barbara Byers]

If I could comment briefly, this is a bit like the discussion about women who work part time wanting to work part time. The reality is that most of them want a full-time, full-year job.

I was recently in a restaurant and an older man was taking the dishes off. I don't know how old he was, but he was working very hard. I don't think this is how he saw his retirement years. I think he may have had all sorts of wonderful ideas about what he wanted to do. They probably weren't big, expensive ideas, but working in a restaurant cleaning off dirty dishes into huge bins probably didn't help him at all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Ms. McLeod.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to pick up on a few points--high-level, mid-level, and then down to some specifics.

I think Mr. Desnoyers' point about societal choice is important. We're talking about women and pensions, but I don't think there's a member of Parliament who doesn't have constituents call...people with disabilities, children. There are many, many needs, and at the end of the day the government's job is a balancing act. If I had my druthers, I'd be saying to support many things. There are many, many needs.

But we also need to ensure that we create opportunities and jobs within our system. It's a very difficult balancing act, and it will always be hard to get that right.

We're here to talk specifically about pensions and women. I know that the parliamentary secretary has worked for a number of months on this. That's not to say that summits don't have their value. When you travel from coast to coast, into communities, meeting with different organizations, we can't say that doesn't have incredible value. But many people can't travel to summits, and when you have a group of people who go to open themselves up to listen....

He's putting together the plan. I understand we're going to have a look at that, and I'm looking forward to it. Certainly he has heard the things we're hearing today. Everyone is aware of these pension plans that have run into bankruptcy and the incredibly horrific circumstances it puts people into. I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't feel that pain.

What I would really like to get into, though—and Ms. Cameron has been fairly quiet here.... We have federal jurisdiction; we have provincial jurisdiction. My first question is on whether there are similar settings. I'm pleased, but surprised, to have the Bloc taking this very national approach to this issue and looking at a national solution. I think they're more regularly concerned in terms of that provincial jurisdiction.

But you talked about 12%. Could you tell me how it looks with the different provinces?

[Judy Cameron]

The way the legislation for private pensions works is that you're regulated by the jurisdiction that regulates the area of employment. As the federal regulator, we regulate pensions in federally regulated areas of employment, which would be banking, interprovincial transportation, telecommunications, airlines, shipping. There are a number of areas of federal regulation that are spelled out in the Constitution. The provinces regulate other things, for example, health care and education.

As the federal regulator, we have about 10% of the private pension plans under our purview. Ontario is the biggest provincial regulator, because they have the biggest population; I think it has about 30%. Quebec comes next. The smaller provinces have less, because it lines up against population, largely speaking.

Most provinces have legislation that has great similarity to the federal legislation. Quebec has a somewhat unique model, in terms of what it requires in funding for its plans. Ontario is the only province that has a pension benefit guarantee fund. That fund would provide some backstop to members of pension plans of bankrupt companies, but it's not a huge amount.

What else would like you to know?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I can't remember exactly how it was expressed earlier, but I was under the assumption that we were in this incredible crisis because of the global recession. Mr. Braniff talked about the bigger issue of the solvency of our private pensions and that this sort of global recession has just compounded that.

I'm trying to understand Mr. Braniff's comment better and get Ms. Cameron's perspective on it.

[Dan Braniff]

I'll be happy to comment. You've opened the right door.