Madam Speaker, in the case of insolvency or bankruptcy, a number of assets need to be distributed among those who have priorities and have put out money. In a bankruptcy situation, everyone must realize that those people who put up the money for that business, the financial authorities and everyone else who was willing to risk their money and support that business, we have to strike a balance between that and the debt side. If we do not strike that balance, I know, and I think every person in the country knows, that some of the pension plans could be multi-million dollar assets. If we were to put that as a super priority, would the normal financial institutions that lend the money to get the businesses in operation retract money in Canada?
Would those investors, who have to invest to make sure corporate interests go forward, be investing in Canada, which would have some very specific laws about bankruptcy, or would they invest in Michigan? Would they invest in the United States? Would they invest in Europe? Would they invest in other areas where they know they have an opportunity of getting some of that money back if a bankruptcy were called?
The difficulty we have is striking that balance. Although I would love to see a policy where every person who has a claim on a pension that may not be fully paid would get every penny of it, in a bankruptcy situation we know that cannot be possible, as well as all the creditors get all their money and the investors get their money. As a result there has to be a reasonable compromise struck.
It is important to realize that under the bill we will be pressing very hard for the corporations to pay the unfunded, unpaid pension liabilities. They will have to be put into the fund. Corporations will not be able to slide by not putting the collected money into the pension plan. However, at the same time, if we put the pensioners above the lenders who are putting in money, no moneys will be invested in Canada. That would be tragic for all jobs in Canada and everyone has to realize that.