Madam Speaker, I am proud to table a petition today that has been signed by hundreds of people in my riding of Hamilton Mountain who are predominantly seniors or people who are very worried about the future of their own retirement incomes.
As people across the country will know, public pensions provide, at most, $16,000 to the typical retiree. Privately, only 31% of Canadians contributed to an RRSP in the last year and they have just seen billions of their savings evaporate. Fewer than 40% of Canadians have workplace pensions. Today, over a quarter of a million seniors subsist on poverty level incomes.
The petitioners in my riding are asking the House to adopt the NDP's comprehensive retirement security plan that would: (a) increase the guaranteed income supplement to end seniors' poverty; (b) strengthen the Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan in consultation with the provinces with the goal of doubling benefits; (c) develop a national pension insurance program funded by employer pension plans that would guarantee pensioners a minimum of $2,500 a month in the event of bankruptcy and plan failure; and (d) create a national facility to adopt workplace pension plans of companies in bankruptcy or in difficulty and keep them operating on an ongoing concern basis.