Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate. I would like to thank the member for Churchill for raising this particular issue.
The motion asks us to amend the definition of pensionable employment under the Canada pension plan. The effect of the motion would be to make payments received by injured workers through the various provincial workers' compensation plans pensionable earnings used to calculate both CPP contributions and benefit payments.
Although the motion deals primarily with the payment of disability benefits, it should be noted that CPP retirement pension payments would also be affected by the motion.
The subject matter of Motion No. 197 is reminiscent of a case that went to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999. At that time a disability claimant, who was judged to be ineligible for CPP disability benefits, claimed that the disability program component of the Canada pension plan was discriminatory and therefore was contrary to section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The claimant in this case had received payments from the provincial workers' compensation program because of a workplace injury. He later applied for CPP disability benefits but was deemed ineligible because he did not meet the CPP's minimum contribution requirements.
He claimed that the workers' compensation payments he received from the province should be considered income for the purposes of CPP. “To do otherwise”, he said, “would be to discriminate against people like him with temporary or partial disabilities”.
However the Supreme Court did not agree. The ruling handed down in May 2000 stated clearly that the disability benefits program of the CPP did not discriminate against persons with temporary or partial disabilities.
The motion we are debating today takes us back to some of those issues that were debated in that case.
Today we are being asked to amend the definition of pensionable employment in the federal CPP legislation so that the payments by provincial workers' compensation plans would be included as employment earnings under the CPP.
The Supreme Court concluded that the CPP did not discriminate against persons with temporary or partial disabilities because the current definition of pensionable employment did not include workers' compensation benefits.
Therefore, as we consider today's motion, we should keep in mind that the Supreme Court has already turned down the argument that has been presented.
It might also be helpful for the House to understand some of the technical implications of the motion.
For example, if we agree with the motion, we could be agreeing to a potential increase in CPP contributions for both employers and employees. Asking employers to pay further employment related contributions on a workers' compensation benefit that the employer has already paid may be perceived as unfair. In fact, employees and employers have already seen an increase in contribution levels that was brought in as part of the CPP reform in 1998.
Adopting the motion would mean that the workers would be required to pay CPP contributions on their workers' compensation payments. If workers were required to pay CPP contributions, their net income would actually be lower.
It hardly seems logical to argue in favour of reducing the net income of workers who are most likely already in lower income circumstances precisely because they are disabled and cannot work to earn a fulltime income. Yet reducing the net income of disabled workers could be one of the outcomes of the motion if it were to become law.
Another concern is that the proposed motion is inconsistent with the earnings related philosophy of the CPP. We must remember that the basic purpose of the CPP is to replace lost earnings in the event of death, disability or retirement of a wage earner. That is why coverage under the plan is based on the earnings from employment. Workers' compensation benefits are not earnings from employment.
Amending the definition of pensionable employment, as the motion requests, would be contrary to the basic principle of earnings replacement, a principle that is the heart of the Canada pension plan.
Moreover, if we were to include workers' compensation payments as pensionable employment income for the CPP, we could open ourselves up to pressure to include other forms of income support such as employment insurance or social assistance payments that are not in fact earnings from employment. Based on the logic of this motion, even CPP payments themselves would be considered pensionable employment.
Taken to the extreme, we could even face pressure to include any kind of non-employment earnings in the base for the CPP such as lottery winnings, inheritance or stock market gains. Who knows what kind of precedent we would set, and that is a very important point, if we were to move away from the basic definition of pensionable employment that is serving us so well now.
In other words, from both a policy and a legislative standpoint, there are many reasons why this motion is not technically sound.
We understand and share some of the concerns of my colleague across the way. In fact, in addition to the disability program of the CPP, the government has brought in a number of new measures such as tax changes and community support programs to help meet the needs of persons with disabilities in Canada, and we will continue to do everything we can in this regard.
In my view this motion is not the best way to help Canadian workers who have become disabled.