Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to what my colleague was saying. She said “the well-being of Canadians” and “consider Canadians”. Does she not consider workers as Canadians? Does she not think workers should have a decent income on which to be able to raise their families?
I have an email from Brian Ferguson who actually works for the railroad. I do not know if the member knows how it is to work on the railroad, but he has been there for 26 years. He says:
The Company wants us to degrade our pensions to levels in place at CN. The 2 pension structures are totally different from each other. We pay higher premiums than our counterparts at CN and have for some time. Why should we now have to drop to their pension levels. We do not have time now to start putting extra funds away to make up the difference we would be losing if our pensions are reduced to levels the company wants.
When we look at this, they have been planning for retirement just as people with OAS have been planning for their retirement and you are willing to pull that off of them. Why are you doing that?