Madam Chair, the first thing I would like to note at this late hour is that this is the 25th time that debate on a bill in this House has been squashed and shut down. This is an affront and an offence to all parliamentarians, and the first thing I want say is shame on the government for yet again trying to shut down debate on a very important matter in the House of Commons here in the Canadian Parliament.
I heard earlier, in the drive-by second reading debate, I might call it, that the minister said the government is only interested in intervening where the public interest is threatened. Let us take a look at what the public interest is really about and what the Conservative government is actually supporting.
CPR is a profitable private corporation. Its net income profit in 2011 was $570 million. In fact, the last four shareholder dividends have been the highest in the last 30 years. What is really interesting, though, is that the CPR board of directors, in a recent shakeup as a result of American-based hedge funds, is now moving in. We all know how much it represents the public interest. I would like to place a wager that this shakeup had only one goal, that being to increase the shareholders' return or profits by seeking to extract the maximum value they could. As is so often the case in these money grabs, someone else had to pay and it is no surprise to learn that in this case, as in many other cases, it is the employees of CPR.
Unfortunately, it is no surprise either that the employer is making a beeline for the hard-earned pensions of these workers. I would like to give a couple of examples of that. This is what some of the demands of CPR will mean for workers in that company.
A 50-year old employee with 30 years' employment in CPR will lose $9,000 every year. A 50-year old locomotive engineer with 30 years service who lives and works in British Columbia, who has 5 years left to work before being able to retire, will see his pension reduced by $9,000 every year, should CPR be successful in its demands. This worker has invested his entire adult life into this career. He is preparing to retire and has absolutely no alternative to replace the pensionable income that CPR wants to take away from him. This worker has paid a higher contribution than at any other railway company. He has paid for his pension benefit and now the government, through its actions, will advantage the employer in its efforts to extract a significant concession from working Canadians at CPR.
Here is another example. A 40-year old employee with 20 years of employment at CPR will stand to lose $27,000 a year. A 30-year old employee with 10 years of employment at CPR will stand to lose more than $30,000 every year.
Members can begin to see the very real impact of what this employer is trying to do to its workers in taking away their hard-earned pensions.
Sadly, CPR is not alone in its haste and enthusiasm to rob Canadians of their hard-earned pensions. It has a powerful ally in the Conservative government, which is leading the way in destroying income security programs for Canadians. How ironic that only today Parliament debated Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act at third reading, yet another—