Debates of May 13th, 1999

Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act

[The Deputy Speaker]

I can clear this up very quickly. All of the motions were identical to motions standing in the name of the hon. member for Saint-Jean. Every one of the motions in Group No. 4 has been put in one name or another. Where they were identical to the motions put by the member for Saint-Jean, they were put in his name.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are nearing the end of a process which, in my mind, has lost some of its credibility and undermined democracy. I wanted once again to start by making this point.

The government has used closure 53 times since in this parliament, since 1997. Often, opposition members have little say either here in the House of Commons or in standing committees. As I said before, it is always the tyranny of the majority.

We are getting rather fed up with all this and the other opposition parties are starting to grumble. Basically, I think there are two types of members of parliament. There are those, like the Liberal members, who do exactly what their House leader tells them to do. When he says “We will now muzzle them”, they all agree, one after the other.

What is most shocking is that government members will often let opposition members talk until they drop. They let them go on and on and they do not take part in the debate in order to speed things up. But what do they do when there is time allocation? They put their names down to take part in the debate, in order to limit as much as possible the time opposition members have at their disposal.

Time allocation is questionable from a democratic point of view, and doubly so, because we are being gagged, not only here in the House, but also in committee.

Moreover, the government's attitude is utterly arrogant. This morning, when he introduced the time allocation motion, the government House leader laughed and smiled as if to say “We are going to shut their mouths once and for all and we will do it with great pleasure”. I find that attitude highly despicable.

But let me come back to the bill at hand. I read recently in the papers that the government is about to form an ad hoc committee, probably made up of psychologists, to look into why public service employees are unenthusiastic and uncompetitive. The government noticed that there was dissatisfaction among its employees and it wants to know why.

It is a bit absurd that the government would ask itself why its employees are so unfavourably disposed towards their employer and so demoralized. Let us take a look at the special laws passed recently, including the bludgeon law that forced employees back to work. At two o'clock in the morning, the President of the Treasury Board rose in this House to solemnly announce that an agreement in principle had been reached.

I was a trade unionist for 20 years and I consider that the President of the Treasury Board managed to add insult to injury.

He tells us at 2 o'clock in the morning that an agreement in principle has been reached. Usually, the agreement in principle is signed and the government says “Now that the agreement in principle has been signed, we will wait for the results of the general assemblies and we will sign once it is deemed acceptable”.

That is not what the government did. Not only did it force workers back to work, but it ignored the agreement in principle as if it did not exist. Even though there was an agreement in principle, it decided to impose back to work legislation.

It is not surprising that there has been a slight decrease in the competitiveness of public servants, nor is it surprising that there is much recrimination and complaining within the federal public service.

I will now talk about another issue that I mentioned in my previous speeches, namely the management of public finances by this government. The last Star Wars movie having just been released, I would say the Minister of Finance is the Darth Vader of the House of Commons.

He hides behind a black costume and sends his troops to the front. When the time comes to make employment insurance cuts, he tells one of his valiant lieutenants to go to the front on his behalf and take money from the employment insurance fund, which generates between $5 and $6 billion a year. The fund had accumulated $20 billion to $25 billion. He tells his lieutenant to go and take it, and hand it over to the government, to settle the debt and the deficit.

These are really unethical tactics, ones that must be denounced.

Darth Vader then orders the President of Treasury Board, when pay equity comes up, when the time comes to pay women in the public service properly, not to do anything, to wait for the Bell Canada decision, and all kinds of decisions. They all came out in favour of the women, yet the President of Treasury Board continues to leave the matter unresolved. There are $2 billion to $5 billion that should be doing to women in the public service.

I would remind him, women public servants are also voters. They are the constituents in Saint-Jean, in Jonquière, everywhere in Quebec. They are the voters in Louis-Hébert, Manicouagan, Argenteuil—Papineau, Matapédia—Matane. They are in every riding.

These are not people who are earning a fortune. They earn about $30,000 a year. This is not a lot of money, so members can imagine what another $2,000 or $3,000 a year would mean to these women. They will simply put more of it into the regional economy.

These are the people who keep the regional economy running. The federal government will get some of the money back in income and other taxes.

The government is doing this deliberately. It says “See what good administrators we are. Look at our public management, here is our report card”. Darth Vader says “I put Canada back on the road to economic prosperity, I resolved the deficit and I am paying off the debt”.

Who resolved the deficit? Women did. So did the people in the public service who invested their money in order to have a reasonable pension plan for their retirement years. Now they are being told “There is a surplus of $30 million, we are going to take it”.

But they do not answer the question. Suppose they take it and things do not work out, then what? The contributions of these people will be increased or the plans' payments will be limited.

There are basic problems. When I hear the House's Darth Vader, speaking through his lieutenants, say “We have put Canada back on the road to economic prosperity”, I find it scandalous. What sort of image will we send to private sector employers if parliament sets the bad example of taking money from the pension funds?

We have used all the terms, because some we cannot use, the unparliamentary ones. Up to now we have talked of rip-off, abduction, control and raiding. We have used all the parliamentary terms, but it comes back to the word we have in our head but cannot say if we are to use parliamentary language.

So, the example has already been given. I recall the matter of concern to me, the case of the former employees of the Singer company.

A few years ago, yours truly asked several questions on behalf of these workers. The government was the trustee and allowed the company to take money from the employees' pension fund, with the result that these people are receiving a monthly pension ranging from $20 to $50. They could have had much bigger pensions if the government had been the watchdog that it said it would be.

When we asked these questions, the human resources development ministers—three of them provided replies over the years—would always say “No, we have nothing to do with this. We did nothing wrong”.

What was on the mind of this government, of these directors and of Darth Vader? They all thought “Some day, we will get our hands on that surplus”. They could see the surplus in the employees' fund, but they did not want to set an example and say “Sorry. We acknowledge our responsibility”.

Today, we can understand why Singer workers were the first victims, but I think there will be others, considering the terrible example the government is giving to the private sector. We proposed amendments, but I am sure government members will never support them. Yes they listen to their parliamentary leader when the time comes to gag the opposition. They follow their orders. They will probably defeat everyone's amendments and stick to their arrogant behaviour.

The Bloc Quebecois and, I believe, most opposition parties, will vote against this bill because it is too despicable.

[The Deputy Speaker]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Halifax West, National Defence.

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to speak for just a few minutes to the amendments that I have now moved. I thank the House for that indulgence.

I would urge all members to vote in favour of these amendments because they fix the problem that the government is creating with this legislation. The government is trying to get its big clammy meat hooks on money which does not belong to it. It is wrong for it to do that.

As I have said, there are several solutions to this. One of them is to just leave the money where it is. It assures the taxpayers. It protects the taxpayers against future losses as the demographics change, and they most likely will. It puts a bit of a security blanket on the fund. The motions put forward by the Reform Party will do just that. They will protect both the people who are the employees and the taxpayers via the government.

I urge all members to support the motions put forward in the name of the Reform Party and in my name because this is what will be accomplished.

I think it is very important for us not to support, as the government is doing, going ahead with the bill unamended and just ramming it through. It is just wrong. It is not the way to treat the employees of the government, the servants of the people. It is just unconscionable.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, many of the motions that have been put forward in my name deal with trying to take out of the bill the language that would enable government to seize the $30 billion pension plan. That of course is the whole goal of the bill.

If we look back at how this whole debate got started, we will see that it was framed around one simple statement made by Alain Jolicoeur, the chief negotiator for HRDC in these matters. About 18 months ago he said that employees and pensioners had no priorietary interest in any surplus in the pension plan.

This statement was further compounded when the President of the Treasury Board said, “The employees and the unions don't stand a chance in hell of getting their hands on the pension plan”. That is a quote, Mr. Speaker. I am not trying to use language that is not correct. This is where we started from.

Obviously it is a basic tenet of the trade union movement and anybody involved with employee benefit plans that all pension surpluses are the exclusive property of the employees who paid into the plan because it is wages. It is part of the pay package and wage package.

As we look at this, it makes one wonder, if the President of the Treasury Board really believed that the employees have no right to claim that money, why then is he changing the legislation? Why then is he going to all this trouble of drafting 200 pages of legislation to get the enabling language to now say that the government can take the money out of the pension plan?

In the changes we have put forward, we are trying to challenge the myth being perpetrated that the employees do not have any right to any part of any surplus. That is certainly what we are being told by the minister's actions.

If one needs further evidence of the fact that the money is the employees' money, it is used that way at the bargaining table. Whenever the bargaining agents for the various public sector employees are at the table with the government, the government uses the whole pension package as part of the wage issue. It says “Well, we can't give you much of a raise this year, but don't forget that you have always got that lovely pension”. When it is to its advantage, the government uses the pension as part of the wage package. Now we are being told it is something completely separate.

As I pointed out earlier, there was a handshake deal if you will, a longstanding recognition of an issue when back in the 1960s the government wanted pensions off the bargaining table. It did not want to negotiate pensions at the same time it was negotiating wages because it was far too complex. The deal was that if the pension issue was taken off the bargaining table, the government would never unilaterally alter the terms and conditions of the pension plan while this deal held, while this pact or accord was in place.

That has been violated. It has been shattered. It has been broken. Exactly what this bill does is it alters the terms and conditions of the pension plan without going to the other party and without negotiations.

There is further language in here that gives the President of the Treasury Board the right to further alter the contributions any time he sees fit. Any time an actuary says it had better crank up the contributions from the employees' side, that can be done without coming back to the advisory board or the House of Commons, which is where it should come back to because the terms are being changed unilaterally. It gives unprecedented powers to the minister that way.

Many of the amendments put forward by the Reform Party and by our party deal with this issue. They try to take that language out of the bill that enables the government to seize not only the current pension but all future pension surpluses generated by the new public sector pension investment board.

[Hélène Alarie, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today because I wish to speak to Bill C-78, an act to establish the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, and other related acts.

We are opposed to the bill now being debated for several reasons. First, because it is another indication of how this government manages the public purse, under the Minister of Finance, by helping itself here and there to any surplus, however small, and using the money to fund all sorts of projects, often in areas of provincial jurisdiction.

We are opposed to this way of doing things. We saw what happened with the surplus in the EI fund. The government helped itself to it. Insurance means just that. There must always be money left in the fund for hard times.

The Employment Insurance Act was amended so heavily that it became extremely difficult for people to qualify for benefits. They are subject to all sorts of investigations, which are fine in the normal course of things, but which often deprive those looking for work of the system they used to be able to rely on.

The amendments to the Employment Insurance Act have gone too far. Surpluses were used to pay down the deficit and to fund other programs as quickly as possible with no regard for the foundation of the EI fund system.

With what happened not too long ago, one has every right to be concerned and to say “It is no better to keep taking money from the surpluses in other funds”.

The surplus in the public service plan is about $15 billion. It is $2.4 billion in the RCMP plan, and $13 billion in the Canadian forces' plan. This adds up to $30 billion, which are going to be used to pay for programs or reduce deficits here and there. The thousands—I repeat thousands—of workers who paid into the plan are getting shafted.

Currently there are around 275,000 Canadians and Quebeckers who have been contributing to the plan. There are 160,000 retirees and 52,000 surviving spouses.

Instead of helping workers, using the interests generated by these surpluses to improve their working conditions and their wages, the government decided to do something else, saying “From now on these surpluses will be part of a fund managed by the government. The government can dip into it as it sees fit, without any regard for the very reason the pension funds were established in the first place”.

When we speak about public service employees, we speak mostly about women since they are the majority in the public sector. We are talking about employees who earn about $30,000 a year and get an average pension of $9,000 a year. These are not people earning above the average, far from it. They are people who might be in need of that $30 billion in the surplus to improve their living conditions, instead of seeing the money taken away from them.

In recent years these same employees have had all sorts of things done to them. They may seem to be a pretty tough lot, but beware. The women public servants may be patient for a time, but when that patience runs out, watch out, for they have had enough of being snubbed, after all the pay equity business.

There are people in my riding who have been waiting for years to see this problematic issue of pay equity solved. When there has been no solution to a problem for more than 10 years, this suggest the problem lies with the ones who are supposed to be finding the solution.

They were told that there were court decisions pending and we would have to wait and see what the outcome would be. There was even a decision pending in the private sector. So the public sector could not make a move because that could have a major impact on the private sector. All of these judgements have been brought down now, and the issue could have been solved.

It is true that several billion dollars are at stake, but that is because nothing has moved for years. Had the problem been settled at the right time, one year at a time, the figures would be far less and people would not be left with the same impression. There would not be these huge sums to be given back to public servants, because they would have been treated properly all along.

The matter is not yet settled. People are still waiting. I do not know if they are Waiting for Godot, like in the play, but they are definitely still waiting, and the money keeps piling up. The workers are getting older, some are already retired. Imagine what a few thousand dollars would mean to these people who have been waiting 14 years to get it and who are receiving $9,000 a year in pension benefits. These people have never earned enough money to brag and say “We are on top of it”.

These people have been and are still being treated unfairly, because they are still waiting for a solution. Now the government is picking on these same people, by taking the surplus in their pension funds and in some way jeopardizing their secure old age and the future of their pension plan.

My hon. colleagues have talked about the government using and abusing closure. Of course, we live in a democracy, and our role in this place is to represent our constituents and defend their interests by opposing bills that could hurt them.

A lot of my constituents work for the government. Even if that were not the case, it would still make sense to me to defend the constituents of my colleagues and even those of the government members.

When we want to address numerous amendments in relation to a bill, closure is brought. This cynical government rises and says “The debate is over”. This is what gagging the opposition is all about.

In this parliament, the government has resorted to closure more than 50 times. It might as well tell us right from the beginning if it does not want us to talk. We have something to say on each of these amendments.

There are things that are disturbing and one of them is how little the government cares about its employees. I am thinking in particular about public servants, because they form the largest group. We can identify with them more, since we have worked a lot with them on recent bills, and particularly on the pay equity issue. Still, this does not keep us from also caring about Canadian forces and RCMP personnel.

It is somewhat alarming to see that ordinary citizens count for so little. By citizens I also mean women, many of whom work with great dedication in the public service, that is for the government. They are watching us today and wondering how far this will go.

The government helped itself to the surplus in the employment insurance fund—public services also pay employment insurance. Now, it is helping itself to the surplus in their pension funds. There is no end to this. And, as I said, but I can never say it often enough, the government has not even settled the very sensitive issue of pay equity.

I will conclude by asking for the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion:

That all government members, since the government has imposed time allocation on consideration of Bill C-78, at report stage, be prevented from speaking during today's debate on this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move his motion?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Jocelyne Girard-Bujold, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to speak today. This sadness hangs over the opposition members.

This government's management style is unacceptable. Since my election in 1997, the Bloc Quebecois and all the opposition parties have faced closure on many occasions.

What is closure? This government uses it to muzzle the opposition. Why muzzle the opposition? Because the government is not capable of legislating in a way consistent with the reality of Quebeckers and Canadians.

I come from an extremely proud and a highly industrialized community. There are also many many public service employees in the riding of Jonquière.

There is a tax data centre there. What did they do recently to the Department of National Revenue? They set up another agency. I think they are trying to see how many agencies they can set up. Why is this government doing that? Because they have a whole lot of friends to thank.

I have always been in active politics. Elected the member for Jonquière, I was not expecting to be part of a circus here in the House. What is this government doing? Taking care of all its friends. Why must these people be compensated? Because the government has nothing to give the people. It has to look after its friends first of all.

What is going on right now with Bill C-78 is unacceptable. The government is doing the same thing it did with the EI fund. Too much is not enough, as they say, and so is too little. This government has no common sense.

On weekends I visit my riding. People say to me: “Jocelyne, are you going to tell the government that there is such a thing as common sense? If they do not know what it is, then they should pay us a visit, talk to people in factories. We will show them a thing or two”.

They did not go to the same school as we did. They went to schools that taught them to reward their cronies, their friends.

What is going on is not fair to women, as my colleague, the member for Louis-Hébert, pointed out. Three quarters of the employees at the taxation data centre in my riding are women. They are constantly coming to see me to complain about how the President of the Treasury Board has insulted them yet again. They are insulted by his unwillingness to recognized pay equity.

Not only does the government not recognize pay equity, but it is dipping into the pension fund. In most cases, these women have sacrificed their health.

For many years now, the government has resorted to cutbacks in the public service in order to reduce the deficit. Where there used to be three or four women doing a job in the taxation centre, now there is only one. The workload has increased. Now the government is actually going to dip into their pension fund, when it is known that most of these women are single parents. They have children under their care. When they retire, they will get a meagre $9,000 pension. It is a joke at their expense.

I do not think there are a lot of government members who know how it is in real life, how much it costs to buy a pound of butter or to buy clothes for children. I will gladly take them shopping to show them the day to day reality of ordinary people.

It is high time workers put the government in its place. They are sick and tired of paying when the government does anything it wants with their money. On top of that, it likes to reward its friends.

I am not proud today. It is May 13. Usually, 13 is my lucky number. Today is not a lucky day for Quebeckers and Canadians, for those people who gave their all to do their job well. They gave their all hoping to have a decent income when they retire.

The government has other ideas. Instead of increasing this decent income, it takes money from these people. Then it says that it is for their own good. Oh, sure.

My parents taught me that a person who takes something from another person must be judged. One of these days, the Liberals will be judged. We will be able to say that we told them not to do that. They will be condemned, and I will be there to applaud.

In closing, I would ask the unanimous consent of the House to move the following motion:

That all government members, since the government has imposed time allocation on consideration of Bill C-78, at report stage, be prevented from speaking during today's debate on this bill.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to introduce this motion?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[Some hon. members]

No.

Business Of The House

[The Deputy Speaker]

The member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges advised me in writing that he would be unable to introduce his motion during Private Members' Business on Friday, May 14, 1999.

It has not been possible to arrange an exchange of positions in the order of precedence. Accordingly, I am directing the table officers to drop that item of business to the bottom of the order of precedence.

Private members' hour will thus be cancelled and the House will continue with the business before it prior to private members' hour.

The House resumed consideration of Bill C-78, an act to establish the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, to amend the Public Service Superannuation Act, the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, the Defence Services Pension Continuation Act, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pension Continuation Act, the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act and the Canada Post Corporation Act and to make a consequential amendment to another act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee; and of Group No. 4.

Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the issue before us concerns the federal employees' pension plan. It is estimated that there is a surplus of about $30 billion.

From time to time we should draw wisdom from the media. I have in my hand an editorial from the Toronto Star dated April 26, 1999. I could not do better than to quote profusely from this editorial.

What, for example, is the nature of the federal employees' plan? What is the amount they contribute from their earnings? They contribute a maximum of 7.5% of their earnings to this plan. Apparently it is a plan that is acceptable to them and it is indeed a very good plan.

What is the duty of the federal government to this plan?

[An hon. member]

How can you stand there?

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North—St. Paul, MB]

I can stand here because this is a House of democracy. If the member of the Reform Party respects democracy, then he will respect freedom of speech.

[An hon. member]

You do not believe in democracy or you would not have shut down debate.

[Rey D. Pagtakhan, Liberal, Winnipeg North—St. Paul, MB]

This is an example of a member of the Reform Party trying to make a travesty of democracy in Canada. I am not angered, I am saddened that it would be evinced by the member opposite.

The duty of government to this pension plan is not only that the federal government will match the contribution of federal employees, but as well it must be noted very clearly that the government will assume all the risk.

There are two points. The government matches the contribution of the employees and at the same time it makes up for any short fall.

What is the issue before us? I will read from the editorial which I mentioned previously:

Today, the plan is estimated to have a $30 billion surplus, meaning that if the future pension entitlements for all employees and retirees were paid out today, the pension fund would have $30 billion to spare.

Two weeks ago Ottawa introduced legislation....

Complicating the debate is the fact that the pension fund and the surplus exist only on paper. In reality, the government has always used the employee contributions to help finance its programs. The benefits are funded on a pay-as-you-go basis from budget revenues....

So if the employees were to win the battle for even richer pension benefits, government spending would automatically go up.

I hope the Reform Party would agree with that. That would leave less money for social programs like health care and less money to reduce the personal income taxes of all Canadians.

I think it only follows that the surplus truly belongs to the Canadian people. Because we assume all the risk, it only follows that it belongs to the Canadian people. According to the Toronto Star , “The government is on solid ground”.

I am surprised the Reform Party, which tries to say that it is about a cut to income tax, would miss the opportunity to find a source for the reduction of income taxes; that a party which would like to see a reduction in our debt would lose the opportunity to find a social fund so we could reduce our debt. More important, we can have a social fund to allocate expenditures for our health care program.

I think I have made the basic points on the issue. With the permission of the Speaker, I will answer any questions that members opposite would like to pose.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Is there unanimous consent that there be a period of questions and comments?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Dale Johnston, Reform, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was not planning on indulging in the debate today, but after the speech from my hon. friend I felt compelled to take part.

He talked about democracy and what this House is all about. I agree that presumably the House is all about democracy. However, this is now the 53rd or 54th time—

[Ken Epp, Reform, Elk Island, AB]

The 52nd time.