Mr. Speaker, the hour is late on this bill although it has been an indecently short debate that has occurred on this important legislation.
It is important to read into the record some excerpts from a report by Eric Norman, the president of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, and Harry Beatty, the director of policy and research for ARCH: A Legal Resource Centre for Persons with Disabilities. At the same time I would like to comment on some of the more chilling aspects of this report.
The disability component of the Canada pension plan has been targeted for billions of dollars in cutbacks in the recent legislative amendments announced by the finance minister and by the Minister of Human Resources Development. The impact of these changes on Canadians with disabilities has been consistently understated or totally ignored by both politicians and the media. To a great many disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals however the new rules will be devastating.
The sixteenth CPP actuarial report prepared by federal chief actuary Bernard Dussault projects a total cumulative reduction in CPP spending on disability pensions by the year 2005 of over $1 billion—
I would like to repeat that, $1 billion.
—while the cutback in retirement pensions and other benefits for the same period is less than $.5 billion. Since the disability program is only about one-fifth of the total CPP, this means that it is being cut much more than any other component of the CPP.
I find it astounding that what we are doing is cutting the benefits of the most vulnerable members of our society.
The depth of this reduction in CPP disability has been carefully hidden from the public by the federal government and the eight provincial governments which support the cutbacks.
Those already receiving CPP disability pensions will not have them taken away or reduced. The persons who will be adversely affected by the “reforms” are now working, often blissfully unaware of the career-ending disability which will affect them in future. The government has adopted the same strategy for persons with disabilities as for seniors: “grandfather” those now eligible, to blunt criticism, and apply the cuts to those whose needs will arise in the future.
The finance minister has recently indicated a willingness to rethink the seniors benefit—he should look again at the disability proposals as well. It is unjust to do otherwise.
But that is an unjust government we are facing right now across the floor from us.
The new CPP plan, scheduled to come into effect on January 1, 1998, has the support not only of the federal government but of eight provincial governments. Only B.C. and Saskatchewan are opposed. Under the amending formula, which requires CPP amendments to be supported by two-thirds of the provinces representing two-thirds of Canada's population, there is sufficient provincial support to have the changes apply across Canada—. Quebec participates fully under the amending formula, although it has its own Quebec pension plan. The PQ government is co-operating with the federal government in making the disability program cuts.
As of 1998, the new rules will require CPP disability pension applicants to have earned more than a specified amount in four of the last six years prior to being determined to be disabled. Current rules require contributions in either two of the last three years or five of the last 10 years. Who will be excluded from eligibility? Young people in the first three years of employment will not qualify.
For example, if a young person who is 21 and has an accident in the first year of his job and he is not covered by workers compensation or he has no private pension plan, which very few people do, that young person will in fact go straight on welfare for the rest of his life.
In another example perhaps a young person with a disability such as Down's syndrome lives with his family and has modest means with no other pension plan. That person may have no labour force attachment—that very strange phrase we use today meaning a job. And the chances as we know are very limited that people with disabilities have jobs unless there is enormous support available for them to get those jobs to begin with. We also know that those supports are disappearing at a great rate. The future for that person without labour force attachment will be either institutionalization or welfare.
It is a cruel irony that this government spends so much time talking about youth when in fact what it is doing is setting them up for a very bitter harvest in the future. That is what we are doing now for our youth.
Others who will be affected very negatively by these changes will be those with recent attachments to the workforce who have for reasons beyond their control such as unemployment or caregiving responsibilities somehow been unable to be eligible.
Of particular concern to us are those who have tried to keep working despite the onset of a disability—multiple sclerosis, or psychiatric disability, cancer, amongst many others. They will be “rewarded” for their determined efforts in many cases by complete disentitlement to a CPP disability pension, which in turn will greatly reduce their eventual retirement pensions. To top it all off—pensions will now start to rise above the minimum contribution level, so someone with low earnings may have to pay CPP contributions to the government in a year, only to be told later that the contributions do not help in qualifying for a disability pension.
Those currently receiving CPP disability will not be affected. Those who apply before the end of 1997 will also have their cases determined under the present rules, so if you believe you may qualify, you should apply as soon as possible. But thousands who become disabled in the future will be disentitled, especially as they reach their fifties and sixties, where the likelihood of disability is much greater.
I guess we should say baby boomers wherever we are in this crowd, beware because it could happen to us.
The cutbacks under the new CPP disability program do not end there. Those who do qualify for CPP pensions will have their eventual retirement pensions lowered by the new rules. Widows and widowers who are themselves disabled will have their combined survivor disability benefits reduced.
Worse still, the federal government states it will continue its administrative changes to the CPP disability program which it describes as “improvements”. What Human Resources Development Canada has really achieved through its administrative “improvements” has been a restricted approach to determining who is disabled, which has disentitled thousands of Canadians unfairly. Older workers in particular, in their fifties and sixties, are being found “capable of working” despite significant health problems leading to physical and mental limitations. The “jobs” they are supposedly able to do may exist in a bureaucrat's CPP manual but they do not exist in Canadian communities in 1997. CPP continues as well to penalize those who attempt training, education, rehabilitation programs or a part time or time limited return to work by finding them “employable” as well, in spite of a supposed policy which says this should not happen.
You do not get rich on CPP disability. Monthly disability pensions in 1997 range from a minimum of $330 to a maximum of $883. Payments are taxable so they are reduced in value for those with higher incomes. But for many who have a limited attachment to the workforce—
There is that great phrase again.
—because of unemployment, caregiving, home making or the onset of disability, the CPP pension benefit is desperately needed. It may be the only benefit a disabled person qualifies for, for example, if his or her spouse is working or if there is a modest income from savings. It is unfair to take the CPP disability pension away from those who need it the most.
Completely unnoticed in the debate is the cost impact of reductions in the CPP disability program on other disability income programs, including provincial social assistance, workers compensation and long term disability insurance. Those other programs top up CPP where a person qualifies for both. So if CPP is cut—