Madam Speaker, I feel duty bound to speak to Bill C-78. For the benefit of those who are watching the debate, it should be pointed out that this is a bill enabling the federal government to take the surplus in the superannuation funds of public service employees, the Canadian forces and the RCMP.
Furthermore, it is aimed at changing the rules and preventing employee representatives from sitting on the board that will be setting the terms of their future retirement.
It is especially offensive that unionized public service employees and other employees who have their associations should not have their say in the management of their pension plan. It is beyond me.
Having been a public sector union representative in the past, I was involved in negotiations on the management of pension plans. The Quebec government agreed to share the management of these plans with the employee representatives. In the private sector, unionized companies are doing the same thing, by and large. It is perfectly natural that employees who contribute to the plan should have their say in the management of the fund and of surpluses.
In the present situation, actuaries tell us there is a $30 billion surplus, which is definitely not a small amount. If we take into account all participants in these plans, present employees and retirees included, we have over 340,000 people.
An amount of $30 billion is enormous, when one thinks about the surplus that has accumulated in the EI fund at the rate of $5 or $6 billion a year. Since the EI reform, all working Canadians contribute to the fund. But members should view the surplus in the public service funds in light of the fact that it took only four years, at a rate of $6 billion a year, to accumulate the current surplus in the EI fund. This means that the $30 billion amount is truly enormous. And it is a surplus.
The government wants to use the surplus as it sees fit in spite of the fact that workers contributed to it. The government says “Should the fund run a deficit, the government would be on the hook”. However what the government fails to say is that historically—and this is an important fact—between 1924 and 1998, government contributions represented only 48% of all contributions.
It means that the government has no right to take this $30 billion surplus, even though there is nothing in the law that supports the employees' position.
But there is more. Given that a large proportion of this surplus comes from interests paid on these huge amounts of money, it becomes even harder to understand the government's decision to use this $30 billion as it sees fit. To what use could this $30 billion have been put if the fund had been jointly managed, if the government had recognized it had no right to use this money for its own purposes? What could have happened? For one thing we could have improved benefits for a particular class of present or future retirees, or we could have decided to put the money to some other use.
Let us not forget that when Quebec was facing budget problems—as other provinces did—public service unions agreed to negotiate with the government the use of pension surpluses to help reduce the deficit.
This is therefore unconscionable, because the government has no right to take this money. It must be said. Some of my colleagues say it differently, but I say the government has no right to take all this money.
The second point I want to make is that this bill shows how the government is incapable of coming to an agreement with its employees, of recognizing that its employees are represented by unions or associations and that these unions or associations speak on behalf of employees and defend their interests.
The government is incapable of providing for a pension plan where the interests of employees will be taken into account. It is rather offensive—and this is the second time I use the word—that the government is planning on appointing the members of the committee that will defend the interests of employees. Will employees have adequate representation on this committee? Will a third of the members represent employees? No.
One of the eight members of this committee will be selected by the minister from among federal pensioners. Employees will not even have the opportunity to select their own representative. There is something wrong with the fact that this government is incapable of recognizing that employees should have a say with regard to the contributions they pay into their own pension plan.
Why should they have a say? Because, in this bill, the government is forcing the funds to invest in the financial market. This argument was not used very often. The government is saying that, from now on, the money from these pension plans will be invested in the market, with, of course, a percentage that the committee will have to be set aside to buy government bonds.
It states further that this is required for the sole purpose of maximizing returns. In today's world, if pension funds must be invested in the financial market, there could very well be transactions that the employees would not approve of.
Return on investments is not the only aspect to consider. More and more, in the face of disturbances caused by the financial markets in several countries, people are realizing that they cannot invest their money any which way, with maximum return as their only criterion. If employees are not involved in the management, they do not have any say in the matter.
I summarize. The government cannot legitimately use the $30 billion as it sees fit because employees did pay their contributions. At least half the surplus should be given back to them, and they should be consulted on how the money should be used and be involved in the decision making process.
Second, it is not normal that, unable to reach an agreement with its employees, the federal government would then decide that the pension funds, including the surpluses, will not be managed jointly.
Third, it does not make sense that the government would decide to invest these funds on the financial market without consulting the employees.
I find this hardly surprising, given that the government is unable to deal with anyone in a fashion other than authoritarian.