Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Hamilton is right when he says that previous parliaments have attempted to deal with this thorny issue, and as recently as the last Parliament. I was seconded by a Liberal MP, the member for Hamilton East, when I introduced a very similar bill in the House of Commons.
Minority government works for ordinary Canadians. We are faced with a unique opportunity to do something historic here. In my view, if we do nothing else in this minority Parliament, if we move this issue toward justice for working people, our time will be well served and our political capital well spent.
From a Hamilton point of view, which both the hon. member and my previous seconder from Hamilton raised, Cold Metal Products stands as a glaring example here. Cold Metal Products, which was located in Hamilton, went bankrupt in 2003. When it shut down, 80 members of the Steelworkers Union were shocked to learn that their employer sponsored pension plan was only 55% funded and that their pensions would be cut back, not just the employees who lost their jobs due to the bankruptcy, but the pensioners, the beneficiaries of the plan. The core plan was 55% underfunded.
This is a pattern. It is becoming a typical norm among employers. They are allowed, although I never understood why, to underfund their pension by 20%, but they push it and there is no enforcement of those who exceed that limit. They run at 50% underfunded and if they run into financial difficulty that funding is never made up.
The bill would require and mandate that the shortfall be made up so that the beneficiaries and the current employees do not lose their pension benefits.