Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment le député pour Laval—Les Îles for this timely and important piece of legislation. I was very pleased to second this private member's bill because of its importance and timeliness.
I would like to start with a bit of my personal background that has led to my strong support for ending mandatory retirement.
Bill C-481, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Canada Labour Code (mandatory retirement age) would bring Canada more into line with other countries and with the provinces and territories. My personal link to this legislation is through my mother Charlotte Murray. Charlotte went back to university when she had three children. Like many women, she entered her career and discovered her passion as an architect in mid-life, as a mature student. She graduated as an architect and went on to do her master's degree in architecture, and became a partner in a very well reputed firm in Vancouver. Charlotte retired at age 75.
In the last seven years of her career she was the lead architect for a major restoration renovation of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. It was the strength of her experience over those many years and her wisdom as an elder in society that allowed her to help the cathedral navigate through the complexities of a restoration process. She brought into the conversation those who felt there should be no change and those who felt there needed to be change, those who were supported by the cathedral through its compassionate programs and the many people who had ideas and interests in this project. As a well-respected and experienced heritage restoration architect, Charlotte Murray was able to steward this project through to a successful conclusion, and I will add that it was award winning. I am very proud of this project that my mother accomplished.
Had there been mandatory retirement in the private sector, which there was not, she would have had to give away her seal as an architect and not undertake projects like that in the last 10 years of her career. This is an example of how the requirement to retire due to age is discriminatory.
To enable people to work, if they are interested in doing so and able to contribute, is important on an individual basis and also on a collective basis for our society. It gives individuals a choice. It is also a compassionate option, especially in cases involving new Canadians or women and others who may have entered their careers later in life. These individuals are still getting fulfilment from their jobs and they are still interested in contributing to society. They may also need the income and the building of their pension program beyond the age of 60 or 65. It is a choice and a compassionate choice for individuals.
However, it also is an important policy and legislation to contribute to societal benefit. As a society we need to draw on the strengths of all those who have something to contribute. Our elders, especially, have a richness of experience and a richness of wisdom from which society can benefit. To ask those people who would like to continue to contribute through the workplace to step aside and stay home would not benefit society.
I have another connection with this legislation that I would like to mention.
Having been a member of the legislative assembly in British Columbia, I identified mandatory retirement as an issue in provincial legislation and brought it forward for examination by my riding association as a potential policy to put forward to the provincial convention. This was in about 2003 or 2004.
I engaged the attorney general of the day in some conversations about what it would take to end mandatory retirement in British Columbia. That policy of ending mandatory retirement was adopted by the provincial B.C. Liberal Party and went on to become law on January 1, 2008. I felt strongly about that in my provincial career. I was able to nudge things forward there, and I am very pleased to support the legislation today.
The last personal link I will mention is this. As the minister responsible for the B.C. public service agency earlier in my political career, it was clear that the gaps being left by the retirees in the public service would be hard to fill. A very large percentage of the civil service in British Columbia would be eligible to retire within the next five to ten years, taking with them all that wealth of experience and dedication to the public and public service. That group was not affected by mandatory retirement, but it highlighted the need for society to find all the ways possible to enable those people who wanted to continue to contribute past a certain age to do so. I worked with the deputy minister to find ways that we could draw people back into contributing to British Columbians.
I understand that only 2% of federally-regulated organizations are subject to mandatory retirement. However, that is still a lot of people when we think about the individual lives that can be touched by being forced to retire well ahead of where one feels still able and interested in contributing. That would be about 12,000 organizations of 840,000 people who are subject potentially to mandatory retirement provisions now and who would be freed from that with this legislation. Approximately 17,000 people are affected by this and could be freed from those restrictions.
We know that not everyone will want to continue working past the age that they are currently under a mandatory retirement provision. If it is like the general public, perhaps 10% or 12% of these 17,000 people would chose not to retire when they otherwise would have been forced to so. That is a large number of people for whom we could help make a compassionate choice, those who may need to continue to boost their pensions or may need to continue to have a paycheque. Perhaps they went into the workforce, as did my mother, in their thirties or early forties, and are just on a roll at the time that they are subject to mandatory retirement.
With demographic changes in our society, which was part of what I was experiencing with the B.C. public service agency, fewer young people are coming into the workforce, which is a potential disconnect between the jobs of the future and the competencies that people will have to hold those jobs. Any small or large measures we can consider would be important to address the potential skills shortages in the future.
It is important for members of Parliament to think not only about the individual compassionate good, but also the collective good. In my view, this is an important policy that addresses both of those aspects of good public policy. Therefore, I am pleased to support it.
Once again, I congratulate the member of Parliament for Laval—Les Îles for her initiative in bringing this forward.