Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc for making a very critical point. This bill would not protect pensions in Canada.
The NDP's original position was that a bill should come forward that does in fact protect pension shortfalls. This is not it. There will have to be another piece of legislation sometime soon.
I can speak briefly to one recent example in the Province of New Brunswick. The Nackawic mill recently went bankrupt. The employer had been dipping into the company pension plan for the last year. In other words, it was keeping the company running by the company pension plan; it was spending it. When the company finally went bankrupt, the pension plan was reduced by $30 million. There are employees at that mill now with 25 years' service and not one penny of pension. The only pension is for those with 25 years plus. It is a terrible, tragic issue.
There are enough assets in the bankrupt company that it could have reimbursed that pension plan, but the employees rank at the bottom of the list, not top of the list. In fact, the CEO of that company structured it in such a way that he, personally, is at the top of the list. He will be made whole; the employees will have nothing.
Clearly, this bill would not resolve issues where the company has been robbing from the employees' pension plan. There should be legislation not allowing employers to dip into pension plans because those are the employees' wages deferred and being held in trust for their exclusive use. It is not the company's money and should never be. However, this bill falls short on that.