Veterans Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2022

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

I can only speak for the time I was on the pension advisory committee. I was there for a long time. They pussyfooted around on the information and never provided complete information to the advisory committee at the time that I was on it. I was on it until, say, 2013-14. I had been there for a long time. All I heard from the chief actuary was that it was going to be expensive, but what that meant, I didn't know.

Of course, we've always advocated that changes were possible, because of the $30-billion surplus that was in the pension fund prior to the year 2000. If you recall, at that time the government changed the pension legislation to permit investments. What gets me, in the conversation, if I can offer one personal comment, is forget about 1901, and focus on this year. We tend to try to change legislation. Let's not change legislation; let's think about establishing legislation. Take the situation that we have today and establish it, getting rid of all the negatives that happened in the past. That's just a personal note.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Again, I will say that, obviously, there is frustration here. One of the observations, being ex-military...and then in other conversations that we've had with veterans, the esprit de corps is to get the job done: Go out there, do your job and get the job done. Then when you come up against something like this, it's bureaucracy and bureaucracy, excuses, finding reasons why, the easy way out and pushing it off.

I want to commend you again for your advocacy. I want to commend you for your passion because it's not just about doing this for yourselves and your families. It's doing it for other families, as Mr. Soulière said, in the future.

Mr. Soulière, I'll go back to this.

Did they give you any reason why they backed out or changed their minds on this?

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

No, I don't recall that point of it. I was out of the association for a couple of years, and that happened during the time I was there. But I don't believe....

Patrick?

[Patrick Imbeau]

No, there hasn't been a good explanation in the last few years, at least that I am aware of.

[Fraser Tolmie, Conservative, Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, SK]

Okay.

We get a sampling of seven people, but I know that when you're....

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

Sorry, it's tough for me to cut everyone off when they are speaking. The discussion is very interesting, but I have to do that as the chair.

I would like to invite Mr. Churence Rogers for five minutes, please.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to say a big welcome to all of the witnesses here today. It's been really enlightening for me to hear some of the personal stories and talk about the circumstances they are facing because of this clause about marriage after 60.

I especially want to welcome Walter and Norma, who live on the beautiful Eastport Peninsula, which is actually in my riding of Bonavista—Burin—Trinity.

I have a couple of questions.

First of all, Norma, I think Sandy might have clarified this, but I want to make sure. You were saying that when you and Walter had the discussion about putting the extra money per month into a survivor's program—the option, I guess, to have a survivor benefit plan, that $500-plus a month—if you passed before Walter, he would not receive any benefit whatsoever, and that money would be lost. Is that correct?

[Norma Pinsent]

That's correct.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Okay. Thank you so much. Now I can really appreciate why you took the decision you did, and I fully understand.

For the National Association of Federal Retirees, what have you heard about how this current pension exclusion stipulation affects the mental health of veterans and their families? I know that Walter talked about this, and so did Norma, but as an organization, have you heard much detail from people about how this is impacting their lives and lifestyles?

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

Yes. It is one of our major resolutions that for years and years we have been advocating for. If I recall correctly, the opportunity of buying an annuity after age 60 and after retirement came into effect only when the new legislation, the new acts, were enacted in the year 2000. I don't think it existed before.

[Patrick Imbeau]

It was in 1992.

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

Okay, so it did exist before, but people were not aware of it. As part of the pre-retirement seminars we give, we keep telling the people who are participating about this option we have, but it's hard. We publish it periodically in our Sage magazine, but it is difficult.

Yes, we hear it. There is not a week that goes by without someone bringing in a case. We have examples, in the brief that we presented to the committee, of some of exactly the same points that have been raised in personal testimony here. We are quite conscious of it, yes.

[Patrick Imbeau]

On page 5, we have numerous testimonies from some of our members.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Okay.

Do the U.S. or other international partners that were referred to earlier have similar policies in place or have they been changed over the years?

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

Go ahead, Patrick.

[Patrick Imbeau]

The U.S. has a very different system. It's more like a life insurance plan that they purchase into; I put it into the brief because it's a bit complicated, but it's not really a comparable system.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

What about other jurisdictions, other countries such as the U.K., or others? Have some of these been studied and reviewed to make comparisons?

[Patrick Imbeau]

I'm not aware of a study to do the comparison, but if I'm given some time, I can come back to you with an answer.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Yes, I'd appreciate that.

The other question that crossed my mind is, how many veterans' survivors out there would this apply to? I know that you talked about actuarial studies and some other things in the past. How big or how broad is this issue?

[Patrick Imbeau]

I think that's exactly our point: we don't know. For the study by Eric Li, he tried to go out and find people, but especially because he was trying to do the study during COVID it was very difficult to find people. That's why he ended up with only about 10 people in his study, so trying to find those stories.... We hear them, as Jean-Guy said. We get people who email us and let us know, and we share it on Facebook.

People can tell us stories, but we don't have an exact number for how many people are affected or could be affected by this. The other thing is that there's a lack of communication on it, because people aren't aware of these issues until something happens to them. They aren't necessarily aware that they're going to be affected.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

I asked the question to deliberately get that answer. It seems to me that's a big part of the solution. There are no details.

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Emmanuel Dubourg]

I'd like to go back to Mr. Frank Caputo for five minutes, please.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This has been eye-opening and illuminating.

I think my colleague Mr. Rogers asked a poignant question about other jurisdictions.

This could go to the National Association of Federal Retirees or to the national RCMP president, to anybody who has any political connections, if you will. I'm sorry: “connections” doesn't sound right, but any sort of political.... What would be the terminology I'm looking for?

For those with associations or liaisons, anybody who deals with government at a fairly high level, do we know why in 2015 this was in the mandate letter? I presume that was the first time that it was. I suppose mandate letters haven't always been released.

Do we know why? Has anybody been given an answer as to why it disappeared in 2017?

[Jean-Guy Soulière]

No. That's the short answer. As part of our advocacy, we meet with a lot of MPs. We have met with some of you at either the local level or the national level. It is always one of our priorities to talk about veterans.

You know, the answer to the question is that probably it was because of the advocacy work...and not only by us. I don't want to take all the credit for this. It was also work by the many veterans associations, a couple of RCMP associations and the pension advisory committees, the three committees that have been established. It's in the law to have these committees. The unions have been pushing as well from their point of view. Of course, their main focus is on current employees, but they also think of employees who will be retiring. We have close relationships with them. I remember a meeting in 2017 with the veterans affairs and national defence ministers at the time, pushing for the idea of marriage after 60 and our advocacy work there.

As to why they took it back, I think they maybe had other priorities, because the mandate letters are based on the priorities they feel are politically sensitive at the time.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

I'm not sure about the demographics for people in terms of age when it comes to veterans or RCMP or those who would be affected. Will there be a surge in retirements in the coming years that would impact this? Is that a possible rationale? Do we have any of that data on how many people are five years from retirement and that type of thing?