Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity to intervene in connection with Motion No. 401 by the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, which reads:
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.
I would like to take a few moments to dissect the motion, starting with the first part calling for the sums paid into pension plans or employee benefit plans to be considered deferred wages.
We in the Bloc Quebecois are naturally in favour of the motion. We are not at all bothered by considering the employee portion of pension plans or benefit plans deferred salaries.
In professional sport, that is how the multimillionaire players get deferred salaries years after retirement. These people are, it must be kept in mind, earning millions of dollars a year. They are not our average wage earners.
Another part of the motion I think it important to address is the part about these pension plans remaining the exclusive property of employees. If the motion had been law, I think it would have prevented certain unscrupulous governments from dipping into pension plans and EI funds.
I am sure the member for Kamouraska--Rivière-du-Loup--Témiscouata--Les Basques, who is the Bloc Quebecois' EI critic, would agree that employers and employees own Canada's EI fund.
As the member for Winnipeg Centre explained so clearly, this would resolve many decades long legal disputes. One particular case that comes to mind is that of Singer, an American company which manufactured sewing machines.
One fine day it decided to shut down its Saint-Jean plant, cross the border and leave for the United States, taking with it the employees' pension fund. It took years to resolve the problem in the courts, so many years that most of those entitled to draw pensions under the plan had died by the time the case was settled. The majority of them had died and those still living were 80 or 85 years old and had only a few more years left to benefit from the pension fund to which they themselves had contributed.
Clearly, we agree completely with the motion put forward by the member for Winnipeg Centre.
In conclusion, however, I find it unfortunate that the motion is not votable. I therefore seek the unanimous consent of the House to make the motion votable.