Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to join the debate and pleased to see that you are in the chair and probably looking at the time and looking forward to having your evening off as well.
I am quite happy to speak today to support Motion No. 285, brought forward of course by the member for Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour. More to the point, as the Liberal critic for veterans affairs, seniors and pensions, I am particularly pleased to support Motion No. 285 as it parallels many of the things that we as a party have been urging the current government to accept and act upon for some time given the reality of the recession that is affecting thousands of people across this country. I think all of us want to work, but when we cannot find a job at 58 years old, then we should be able to rely on our government for assistance when all else fails.
Regretfully, the Liberal Party and the current Conservative government seem to place radically different levels of focus on these issues. We just heard from my colleague that it is a very different ideology and a very different thought process.
As Liberals, we believe it is incumbent upon governments to be proactive and to help whenever they can. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister and his Conservative caucus have their own thoughts on the issue which were clearly spelled out by my hon. colleague across the hall. I say this not to be unkind, even though that is usually what we are in the House, but rather to simply point out that the Conservative Party, now the government, has time and time again demonstrated its political tendency for playing to the masses while practising a strict adherence to the notion that only the strong shall survive.
That is not the Liberal way. I do not believe that is the Canadian way either. After all, it was the current Prime Minister who once ran for the office with a promise to replace the CPP with personal, high-interest pension accounts in which citizens could deposit all of their extra money, money that could then be used for their retirement. To me it sounds like a plan that might be slanted toward those with a great deal of extra money.
Another case in point is income trusts. In the election campaign, the Prime Minister said that taxing income trusts was like robbing our seniors of their nest eggs. We all heard him many, many times say that. But once in office, what did he do? He said he needed to tax income trusts to prevent the rich from getting richer. Given that the measure primarily impacted seniors and near retirees I am forced to wonder what event could possibly have perpetuated this radical policy flip-flop. The answer is simple. There was nothing. Nothing changed and nothing happened. If nothing happened, one must wonder if the idea to tax income trusts was always part of the Conservative plan. More important, it was a part of “I will say anything to get elected and I will do what I want after”.
I could go on with several examples, but I think most understand and accept that the Conservative government's record on quality pension reform and retirement income security is lacklustre at best.
As many members of the House will know, tens of thousands of skilled workers, particularly those who were employed in the manufacturing sector which my colleague referred to earlier, have lost their jobs due to circumstances far beyond their control. But what many do not fully understand is that the actual job loss is only the tip of the iceberg.
On September 20, 2007, our dollar hit parity with the U.S. dollar for the first time in more than 30 years. While Canadian tourists and cross-border shoppers began to rejoice, Canada's manufacturing sector winced as it was hit squarely in the bottom line. This reality, coupled with certain global market pressures, was part of a chain reaction that saw huge multinationals fail and governments worldwide dole out billions of dollars in economic stimulus.
In 2007, more than 130,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in Canada. This year our economy has shed nearly half a million jobs in total. Where are these people? They are still unemployed. These numbers might sound staggering but it is not until one factors in the actual collapse of those companies and the subsequent loss of those companies' pension plans that the real toll in real terms can begin to be measured.
People can work to get another job, if they are lucky, but it is impossible to financially recover when 10, 20 or 30 years of pension contributions and interest are lost.
Canadian workers have been and are still losing their jobs today and their future financial security at an astounding rate. As recently as today, the OECD, which my colleague referred to earlier, released a report suggesting that western nations could set a new post-war unemployment record with the jobless numbers topping 10% next year.
While most nations are working tirelessly to stop the bleed, the Conservatives in this country continue to stand by with absolutely no plan of action to stop the hemorrhaging or to repair the damage. Just like they denied the recession was happening in the fall, the Conservatives' head-in-the-sand approach to problem-solving is now being extended to pension and retirement income security.
On the other side of the debate, the motion today deals with the need for a genuine program for older workers to help them financially transition from working life to retirement, but I would suggest that this concept must also be part of a far larger and more comprehensive debate on pensions and national income security.
The CPP, employment insurance, old age security and a host of other programs currently offered by the federal government have become the primary, if not exclusive, components in the retirement or emergency income strategies of many Canadians. Worse yet, in most cases, these important systems have been without a substantial review or wholesale revamp for several years.
There are few in this House who would suggest that Canada and the Canadian economy are the same today as when the CPP was passed by Lester Pearson in 1966. Today retirement income and pension security are also premised upon sound investments and robust global market growth, but, as members know, the current economic crisis has yielded anything but robust global markets. In some cases, portfolios have contracted to such a degree that investors have been wiped out entirely, undoing 20 years of shrewd financial planning.
While the current Prime Minister calls this negative market reality a great buying opportunity, to many watching, as a lifetime of retirement savings leak away, the situation qualifies as an outright crisis.
This brings me to Motion No. 285. I want to be clear. While the sponsoring member and I have differing opinions on many things, we share a real concern for those impacted by the global recession. Unlike the current Conservative government, we are determined to yield results for the tens of thousands of hard-working Canadian families who find themselves without work and without savings during this nearly unprecedented global and Canadian recession.
Motion No. 285 is a measure that fits hand in glove with the notion of income security. It is for that reason that I intend to stand in support of it. I say this carefully because I view Motion No. 285 positively, but I also see it as just one piece of a much larger puzzle. To have a real debate on retirement income, pension and investment security, we need to look beyond today's seniors. While we need to help protect our seniors and older workers today, we must also consider those who have seen their retirement savings eroded or eliminated as a result of the global economic downturn.
I cite the former Nortel pensioners as an example. In many cases, these employees worked for many years, contributing to a company pension plan that promised to be the central pillar in their personal retirement strategies. Today, with the volatility in the marketplace, that pillar has been toppled and the Conservative government seems content to deny the very existence of the problem.
I am pleased to be able to support this motion. I would think there are a variety of things that we need to talk about in the future, such as maximizing income coverage, where we can ensure it is adequate, and how we can protect the level of benefits that have been promised.