I've been advising women's groups for 30 years. In the summer, we provided the Minister of Finance with our comments on the proposed amendments to the Canada Pension Plan as set out in Bill C-51. So, in essence, I am also speaking on behalf of the 13 other women's groups in Quebec, including the Fédération des femmes du Québec and several other major groups.
I'd like to address three points. First of all, I'd like to refer to the Canada Pension Plan and to the proposed amendments to it as found in Bill C-51. I'd also like to address the proposed creation of a voluntary account, in the manner which was discussed earlier on by my two colleagues. Then, I would like to refer to specific demands from women's groups to enhance their retirement income. Finally, I would like to conclude with a few remarks on statistics which would allow for gender-based analyses to be carried out.
I have also sent to your analyst, Ms. Julie Cool, a brief we tabled before a parliamentary committee in Quebec, having to do with a change to the QPP. This document contains a great deal of statistics and information on women and pensions in Quebec. However, it has not been translated.
Bill C-51 seeks to cut pension benefits for all individuals retiring before the age of 65 by increasing actuarial adjustments. First of all, we are very worried by the fact that this legislation has received practically no media coverage and that no specific parliamentary committee was struck to address the issue, nor have there been any broad-ranging public discussions on it. We are convinced that it will disproportionately affect women rather than men. In Quebec, we know that women retire earlier than men, often because they stop working to care for a spouse, an older person, someone who is ill, or a parent, or because their spouse is retiring and they decide to retire at the same time despite the fact that, in general, they are younger than their spouses. We therefore see no reason for cutting benefits. We believe that would in fact lead to greater poverty for seniors, especially women.
We are not very enthusiastic about the voluntary contribution measures precisely because they are voluntary. Moreover, we believe that it will become an additional tax advantage for the wealthy who are already saving enough for their retirement whereas middle class individuals who contribute a modest amount to their RRSPs do not do so enough to ensure continuing income upon retirement. They would still not be contributing enough to make a difference.
Rather, we support improving mandatory premium-based public plans like the CPP and the QPP. We believe once this becomes the modus operandi for employers and staff, people will adjust. We would also like to note that our contributions and benefits, here in Canada, are far lower than those of European countries, for instance.
Let's get back specifically to measures to assist women. We have also found that only a public plan can consider the fact that people do contribute to a country's economic growth through unpaid work.
There are already three ways to take this contribution through unpaid work into account within the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan. First of all, a woman who is responsible for a child under the age of seven and whose contributions are less than her average contributions over the course of her career can exclude these years from her pension calculations. We believe that this right of exclusion should be converted into an inclusion, in other words that pension credits should be allocated automatically; we would suggest they represent 60% of the maximum insurable earnings, because those who benefit the least from this measure are, for instance, women with several children and who, therefore, tend to re-enter the workforce less, or often work part time. The automatic allocation of credits would meet the needs of these women, based on the number of children they have.
We believe the same should apply to individuals who stop working to care for disabled or ill adults, a task which is often women's work as well, in 75% to 80% of cases.
The second measure regarding women has to do with surviving spouses' pensions. In Quebec, they are more generous than elsewhere in Canada, but on the other hand, the orphan's pension is lower. In our brief, we would suggest decreasing surviving spouse benefits to help fund the measure I will refer to in a moment. In the past, surviving spouses' pensions were designed to consider the fact that when women got married, they would have children. So, the purpose was to consider the fact that women cared for children. But, increasingly, there is no automatic correlation between marriage or cohabiting and having children. So, we prefer measures that directly recognize the work women do with their children.
Finally, the third measure which would put women's pensions on a somewhat even playing field with those of men is the sharing of credits which is governed by family law in the various provinces. We believe that that is a good measure. It ensures fairness within a couple. That said, in Quebec, we have data on the number of cases of sharing and what that means and for whom, yet in the documents I consulted from Human Resources and Skills Development Canada—