Mr. Speaker, just in case my colleagues across the way have lost sight of what we are talking about or the public has forgotten, because sometimes when a debate goes on other things come into it, I want to reinforce the motion by my colleague from Winnipeg Centre:
That, in the opinion of this House, any actuarial surplus in any pension plan or employee benefit plan should be considered the deferred wages and exclusive property of the employees and should only be used to improve the benefits of retirees or to provide a contribution holiday for employees.
A lot of Canadians believe this already happens. We have heard horror stories over the years where different employers raped the pension plans or went bankrupt and used the pension plans and the employees were left out in the wilderness in the snow. They were left going into their senior years with nothing.
Canadians think that governments addressed this issue and put in strong regulations to make sure this did not happen. A lot of people out there believe this has already happened. It is surprising that sometimes private members have to bring forward good motions and good pieces of legislation to address the downfall and the lacking of the government of the day and certainly, that is the case here.
My colleague from Winnipeg Centre has been involved with employees for a number of years. I am sure over time he has seen a number of cases where this has happened and the employer has utilized the funds.
I think of the situation of the Giant mine workers in Yellowknife and what they went through with their severance packages and pension plans when that mine went under. The government, and I believe it was under the auspices of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, took over the mine and literally gave nothing back to those employees. They were left out in the cold, which again is no surprise with the government.
It is crucial that we as private members bring these motions forward and remind the government of what is important. Canadians want to see values. They want to know that when they make investments in their pension plans, they will reap the benefits of those pension plans.
It is not just those employees that reap those benefits. Each and every one of us knows retirees in our communities. Often employees leave their employment with a pension that gives them $10,000 a month. Mostly they are minimal pensions that give a person a living to some degree. Those people are interspersed in every small community, village and town in the country. Those are the people who keep our local economies going. The more we can put into their pockets in their retirement, the better off we are as a country. That is what sustains our local economies and builds the country we know and we want to be proud of.
I am extremely pleased that my colleague has brought forward this motion. I want to support his motion. It has certainly been good listening to some of the members who have supported it. Obviously there are those who had some rather lacking comments about it for what I consider invalid reasons, but so be it. That happens in the House.
I reflected on some things as my colleague from the PC/DR Coalition was speaking. He talked about the need for the government to follow through on what it does so that the private sector will also follow through. It is tough ensure that the private sector will follow through on rules if the government does not do it.
Pay equity was the prime example. For 14 years public servants had to fight the government year after year after year. Literally hundreds of thousands, actually millions of dollars went to legal fees to fight the employees who were claiming rightful equity within the public service.
Finally the government was forced to come through with it. There were 14 years of legal fees and fighting. Through that whole process that was the example it was setting for private industry in Canada. It said that pay equity was not important, not worth diddly-squat. It made that fight in the private sector that much tougher.
It is crucially important that the government practice what it preaches. Otherwise it does not get the support and does not have the trust of the public.
There is another situation. I almost do not want to bring it up but I do so because it happened this afternoon and it bothered me that the government would take this stance. We talked about the cluster bombing in Afghanistan. Former foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy is renowned internationally for his efforts to ban landmines. Canada sings its praises about banning landmines. We could not get the U.S. on side and never could, but Canada went out there and sang its own praises. All the Liberal members I am sure jumped up at numerous times and clapped and cheered because they were opposed to landmines.
Today we heard about cluster bombs. They will land and not explode, but they will explode later. They act just like landmines. We heard that we have to do that sometimes. No, we do not do it ever. If we do not believe there should be landmines, then we follow through all the time. It is absolutely inhumane to leave bombs sitting around for children to walk over. The small children are the ones who suffer the most.