Mr. Speaker, this question is very important and, as he knows, dear to my heart, as I have one of the largest groups of Nortel retirees in Canada in my riding. During this election and for the last number of years I have known many of these people personally. I have witnessed the heartache, particularly over long-term disability as well as over the pension issue.
I first became aware of this situation when a number of people told me they were only going to get maybe 15% to 20% of their pensions by the time it unwinds. Whether it was fraud or mismanagement is, of course, yet to be determined.
We as a government asked what we could do. We undertook a number of initiatives, and right now the regular retirees are probably going to get well in excess of 80% through a number of concrete actions taken by this government.
Is it enough? Of course not. We always want it replaced. However, I can thank the finance minister for putting actions and activities into the previous budget as well as the current one to deal with that reality.
It cannot be retroactive. We understand that. Even Nortel employees recognize that, but we have to deal with the eventualities of other corporations in the future that can be impacted by legislation that we bring forward.