Debates of April 23rd, 2021

Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member could indicate if she has any concerns in regard to how her bill could incentivize companies to actually liquidate over restructuring, which would ultimately cause some very serious issues in terms of defined benefit plans.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

That is the argument we always hear. I therefore invite my colleague from Winnipeg North to read my bill, which on balance is absolutely reasonable.

My bill is a compromise between the desire to restructure corporations, because we want people to keep working, and a bailout, so that those who retire can also get what they are owed. As I said, pensions are deferred wages that belong to the workers.

I heard several arguments in favour of this bill. The member opposite could even look to members of the Liberal Party of Canada who specifically suggested what is in my bill.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, in 2015, the Liberal government promised the Canadian people that it would change and make sure that their pensions would be protected. In 2019, the Liberal government did make some amendments, but they seemed to be cosmetic.

Does the member agree with me that the changes the Liberals made did not do anything to protect the pensions under CCAA?

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, and I share his views on defending the rights of pensioners and workers.

In fact, I do believe it was cosmetic. We saw this in 2014 and 2019, and also in 2018.

I would like to remind the House that in 2018, when a review was being conducted, a committee was studying the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act. It had to be revised. The Bloc Québécois was not involved, but all committee members from all parties of the House agreed that no amendment would be made to the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.

I naturally hope that concrete action is taken. My bill is one example of what can be done.

[Louise Charbonneau, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague for her excellent speech. That is a great idea.

I would like to once again point out that seniors are the ones affected by these kinds of events. I would like my colleague to explain what happens with drug coverage and life insurance in such cases.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want pensioners to be compensated when they lose their insurance. Most of them have experienced great hardship. When they needed medication or were fighting cancer, many of them found themselves penniless.

We need to find ways to let them keep their insurance or to be compensated for a certain amount of time.

By creating two classes of seniors, the Liberal government clearly showed us that seniors are not a Liberal priority. We are seeing that again with the promises they make to pensioners but never keep.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I recognize the next speaker, I would like to remind members who are participating virtually to mute their microphones unless they have the floor.

Resuming debate, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, prior to debating the bill, I want to add comments. The member was just speaking about promises to seniors and the two classes of seniors. It is interesting whether it is the Bloc, New Democrats or even Conservatives, how they are being critical of us for fulfilling a campaign promise. It should not come—

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Assistant Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole]

Order. The member for Manicouagan on a point of order.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Madam Speaker, I just wanted to say that I think the member for Winnipeg North is off topic.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

As the member knows, there is some flexibility during speeches. The hon. parliamentary secretary is just starting his speech, and I am certain it will be relevant. Let us wait and see.

I remind the hon. parliamentary secretary to ensure that his speech is relevant.

Resuming debate. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, let me digest that for about five seconds. That is ridiculous. I just finished commenting on something that the member just provided an answer to a question on the bill.

Let me get right to the point of the legislation itself. I asked the member a question on how Bill C-253, in its current format, would provide an incentive for companies to liquidate as opposed to restructuring. In response she suggested that I needed to read the bill. It is not a question of reading the bill as much as it understanding the potential consequence of the legislation. She has not been able to alleviate those concerns as she has indicated in her response to me that she is already somewhat aware of this.

Pensions do matter. Pensions are very important to Canadians. The Liberal Party talked about retirement plans at the last AGM. Retirement plans are a deferred future income. We need to be there for Canadians in a very real way. The Government of Canada has been there, dealing with and continuing to work on ways we can enhance pensions.

In fact, as was referred to earlier, I would remind the hon. member that the national government worked with different provincial and territorial governments to get increases to CPP, which will ensure that all workers contributing to CPP will have that much more when it comes time to retire.

We recognize how important pensions are. We also need to realize that pensions come in different forms. When I think of pensions, it would be wonderful if all pensions were funded pensions, that the money associated with those future expenditures would be put aside and protected so pensioners would have no issues whatsoever.

Unfortunately that is not the reality. That is not just within the private sector, but it is in the public sector as well. Often what we find is that employers, and governments, will create unfunded pension plans. Those pension plans are based on revenue or income. There can be hybrid pension plans. A good example of that is in fact the CPP.

There are many different forms of pensions out there. Personally, I like the hybrid version because I believe that is very workable, even though it is not necessarily the ideal.

When I look at the bill, the employee group benefit claims would be weakened and that could ultimately weaken companies in their ability to restructure and affect that sense of competitiveness of firms with respect to defined benefit pension plans as well as group insurance benefit plans, which would not necessarily help pensioners and workers in all cases. It has the potential to threaten the existence of defined pension plans.

That is why I am a bit surprised. The Conservatives seem to want to support the legislation. I do not quite understand their arguments and will wait to hear from the Conservative members. Maybe they could address that specifically. Do they not have any fears with respect to companies that might, as a result, want to liquidate over restructuring? It is a very serious issue.

We recognize that after a lifetime of hard work, Canadians do deserve to have that peace of mind when it does come time for security. Many years ago, I can remember walking on a picket line out in Transcona. Today's industries have modified significantly, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. When I was walking this picket line in the early nineties, I was amazed to find that there are workers who have been working for over 30 years and they are getting $400 or $500 as a pension after that long commitment to a business. That is not rare, unfortunately.

We have seen significant improvements over the years, but it is important for all of us to do what we can to advocate because we all have a responsibility to ensure that people have that disposable income when it comes time for retirement. On that issue alone, I could speak extensively on why we have some programs, particularly in Manitoba, that will start off financial supports for seniors at age 55 and why some seniors at an older age require additional support. That will be for another day, but the bottom line is we do need to recognize that after a lifetime of hard work, there is a need to ensure peace of mind for Canadian workers. If I genuinely felt this legislation that was going to be achieving that, I would be far more open to supporting it, but I am not convinced of that now.

We are taking, I believe, as a government, a holistic approach, one that is based on evidence in terms of addressing retirement security for all Canadians. As a government, we have held national consultations, heard from pensioners, workers, lenders and companies on these very important issues. As I said, over the years, there has been CPP enhancement, working with different stakeholders, working in consultation with seniors, increases to the guaranteed income supplement and the budgetary announcement, most recently, in regard to 75 and over, in fulfillment of that election campaign.

We have taken these steps also to make insolvency proceedings fairer and more transparent. That ensures there is a higher likelihood of oversight over corporate behaviour; for example, by giving courts greater ability to review and claw back unreasonable executive pay that leads up to insolvency. Nothing really gets to the core of the problem and causes a great sense of frustration when workers feel that their pensions, and justifiably so, are being squandered or not being given enough attention, and yet there are huge bonuses going toward corporate greed. We have been taking steps. I appreciate my time is running out. We will continue to advocate for pensions for workers any time of the day.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, before us today is a bill the summary of which says it will give priority to unfunded liabilities and solvency deficiencies in pension plans during bankruptcy proceedings.

As a quick background, right now when a company goes bankrupt, its assets are typically liquidated and a court, a judge, will allocate the proceeds of that liquidation to creditors of all shapes and sizes. Some of them are bond holders, others are contractors with outstanding invoices, and others of course are employees with pension benefits that are deficient. They are not properly funded and therefore require injections of capital in order to make them whole.

These are ugly situations we have seen time and time again. They are particularly ugly because they tend to coincide with major drops in the stock market that reduce what is in a pension fund's assets, so we have a “when it rains, it pours” phenomenon. When companies typically go bankrupt, it is usually when the economy is doing badly. Therefore, the stock market drops and all the money in the pension fund that has been invested in the stock market drops with it. Therefore, the pension is under-capitalized and there is not enough money to pay out the beneficiaries.

What happens then is that the pension is given over to a guardian, usually a company like Morneau Shepell, for example, which just happens to be the case, and that company then converts it into an annuity, which pays out an annual salary to the pensioners that is inferior to what they had been promised in their defined benefit plan.

The problem with bankruptcies is that there are too many people who want what is too little money that is left over. What do we do about that? I will come to my view on that in a moment, but let me describe why this bill is important, especially today. Our corporations in Canada are now more indebted than ever before. Let me read a report from TD Economics, which states:

In fact, nonfinancial corporate debt is high also when compared to international peers. According to the Bank for International Settlements...Canada’s...debt-to-GDP ratio of 118.7 percent ranks third amongst G20 countries, trailing only China and France....

The report also says that debt payments are “close to historical highs” and “a higher share of corporate income is going to servicing debt”, even with today's low rates. What will happen when rates rise to historically normal levels? The answer is bankruptcies, because all this corporate debt, which is unsustainable today, will become doubly unsustainable when normal rates of interest are applied to it. Then those companies will go bankrupt and their workers will simultaneously see their pension fund depleted by dropping stock markets, and they will be left without the benefits they were promised.

The proposal from my hon. colleague is to see that in the case of bankruptcy, the pensions would be treated as currently unpaid wages are treated: That is to say, they are put at the front of the line, ahead of all the other creditors. The corporation would then liquidate its assets, and the first proceeds would go to make the pension whole. Only then would other lenders and creditors get a payout.

The counter-argument against this is that it would make it harder for companies to borrow money. After all, lenders would say that if they are behind the pensioners in the lineup in the event of a bankruptcy, then their risk level is higher. They stand to lose more and therefore will not lend the money. That is the thinking, and that is true, but the question I ask is whether that is entirely a bad incentive.

Should we not create a present-day incentive for CEOs to ensure that their pensions are not just well funded but rock-solid? If the pension is rock-solid, then lenders would have nothing to worry about in the event of a bankruptcy, because the pension would be able to stand on its own two feet. In other words, the proposal in this bill in principle could act as a present-day incentive for CEOs to put their pensions on a more solid ground lest they face penalty from lending markets.

Right now we have a perverse incentive. CEOs often underfund pension plans because in the present it causes them no problems. However, down the road, 15 or 20 years later, when they are long gone and have been paid all their bonuses and benefits, the pensions go under and it is not their problem anymore. We saw that with the bankruptcy of the automotive companies. For many years CEOs made promises to workers without any ability to keep those promises, and then taxpayers had to come in and clean up the mess of long-retired corporate management.

The benefit the bill might provide is that it would force companies to fund, and even overfund, their pensions in order to give confidence to lenders that, in the event of bankruptcy, their pensions would not consume more of the proceeds of bankruptcy. That kind of market incentive might be helpful in ensuring that present-day management gives our pensioners a solid ground and protects its financial viability against the worst unexpected events that could come down the road.

Let us imagine if a CEO said that instead of contributing the minimum amount to the pension fund to get by, he would contribute as much as it would take to make it foolproof against a massive recession, against a massive drop in the stock market and against even his company's own bankruptcy. That would be the ultimate benefit of a regime that incentivizes corporate management in the present to back up pensions in order to have the viability to raise money on debt markets.

I will not lie. There are certain challenges with the bill, and I think the member might even agree with that.

First, there are challenges of transition. Let us say a company today has committed some of its current assets in collateral to get loans. If we were to change the law all of a sudden, that collateral relationship, which is written into a contract, would be broken, and we would have a potential interruption of our financial system and some companies would end up in lawsuits with their present-day creditors.

Second, we would have to find a way to ensure there could still be collateralized arrangements. We do want our businesses to be able to point to their assets and say they are going to the markets to borrow some money against their assets to hire more workers, buy more machines and create more wealth here in Canada. However, what we need to do with the bill is ensure that it is crafted in a way that allows that to go on and, at the same time, incentivizes businesses to put their pensions on solid ground by ensuring that pensioners come at the front, rather than at the back, of the bus.

While I am not sure the bill has been perfectly crafted, and I do not know for sure if it could pass in its present form, I do think it is worth sending to committee for some study. What is clear is that if somebody works hard all their lives and their company goes bankrupt through no fault of their own, the pension on which they rely, and with which they were intending to pay for their housing, their food and even their long-term care, should not be stripped away from them. Businesses, within the context of the free-market system, should be incentivized to make today's decisions for tomorrow's pension security.

The principles in the bill may allow that to happen. Therefore, on behalf of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, I am here to announce that we will support sending the bill to committee at second reading.

We pledge to work with the hon. member to improve this bill and take her concerns into account in order to respect the principle of the bill while protecting the financial system, which includes all investments in our businesses.

We will be supporting the bill to send it to committee in order to advance the cause of pension security, and we will look to amend any problems so that we protect the financial system that is the lifeblood of jobs, while protecting the pensions that are the reward of a lifetime's hard work.

[Scott Duvall, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the chamber as the NDP critic for pensions on what I believe is one of the most important matters in the pension portfolio before us today. The subject matter of the private member's bill, Bill C-253, regards protections of the employer-sponsored pensions for workers in the case where the employer is undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.

I would like to sincerely thank my Bloc colleague for using her spot in the priority list of Private Members' Business to bring forward these measures. As she knows, I feel strongly about the necessity of these protections put forward, so much that my bill, Bill C-259 contains equivalent measures to every article contained in this bill. I would like to let her and the House know that I am calling on all my NDP colleagues to support the bill at second reading and I hope to see it get to committee.

What I would like to talk about in the short amount of time I have is: first, the importance of pensions and the types of pensions we are talking about; second, the current situations by way of the acts of Parliament and some real accounts of the problem at hand when companies go bankrupt; and third, what Bill C-253 does and does not do.

My speech today will be as much for those at home as it is for those present in the chamber. It is important for all Canadians to know clearly what is at stake here in simple terms so they can ensure that their MP is doing the right thing when they cast their vote on this.

Pensions have become so commonplace in society that some may take their existence for granted. While the administration and accounting of the pension plans by those who manage them may be complicated, the concept is pretty simple and makes their importance clear.

During our working years, we put money away in regular amounts so that we can draw on that fund of money in our retirement years in order to live. Canada's government, like many other governments, has a segment of our pension sector which is socialized. For those of us who are fortunate enough to have contributed to the workforce, we pay into the Canada retirement income system that is made up of, among other things, the old age security, the guaranteed income supplement, the Canada pension plan and in Quebec, the Quebec pension plan.

While I go on about the importance of these retirement incomes and the necessity for their reform, this is not the matter of Bill C-253. The bill instead touches on what I call employer-sponsored pensions. Employer-sponsored pensions are those whereby in an agreement there exists an employer's obligation with respect to a pension plan that it sponsors for its employees. The employer agrees to deduct from their wages an agreed amount to remit to the pension plan fund and agrees to also remit an amount of its own, oftentimes equal to the employee's contributions.

This brings me to talk about the defined benefit pension plan versus defined contribution pension plan and it is important that we distinguish these in order to talk about Bill C-253.

With a defined contribution pension plan, the amount of income we receive is not set but rather depends on how much we happen to contribute and in fact, can drastically be reduced depending on how the investments in that fund were managed by the employer.

On the other hand, with the defined benefit pension plan, the amount of income we receive is set and the administrator of the fund is compelled to be responsible in investing our money. In this type of pension, there could be a pension deficit. This is considered unfunded liability.

We can discuss the problem that Bill C-253 proposes to fix, the situation where an employer is facing bankruptcy and who has obligations under an arrangement to provide an employer-sponsored pension plan. The bill proposes to change the existing laws that deal with such a situation. The Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, BIA, covers the treatment of a bankrupt employer's obligations with respect to a pension plan and its sponsoring for its employees. The Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, CCAA, provides a restructuring framework for insolvent companies. The BIA and CCAA provide for priority for the employer to pay both. The employer's contribution is deducted at source, but not remitted to the pension plan fund and employees' contributions owed, but are not remitted to the pension plan fund. In fact, under these laws, a court is disallowed from approving a proposal or plan unless these two are paid.

Here comes the problem. Unfunded liabilities like pension deficits in the case of defined benefit plans that are accrued and due to the pension plan's fund on the date of the bankruptcy come after secured creditors. This means that banks, investors and parent companies would be paid before the shortfalls in the pension plan are covered.

Pensions and benefits earned by workers are deferred wages, plain and simple. Denying workers what they have earned should be illegal, yet under these laws, corporations are allowed to take money meant for workers' pensions and divert them to pay off their secured creditors, like banks. Bill C-253 would stop this practice.

In recent years, workers have suffered significant losses to their pension plans in insolvency proceedings under the CCAA.

For example, Sears Canada initiated proceedings June 2017. The pension plan deficit was $206 million, with an expected recovery of only 8% to 10%, and would leave $200 million unrecovered.

Co-op Atlantic initiated proceedings in June 2015. The pension plan deficit was $63 million and only $7.7 million was recovered, leaving $54.3 million unrecovered.

Wabush Mines initiated proceedings in May 2015 and of the $55 million of the pension plan deficit, only $18 million was recovered, leaving $370 million unrecovered.

Nortel Networks Corporation, which we all know very well, initiated proceedings in January 2009 and of the $1.84 billion of the pension plan deficit, only a little over half was recovered, leaving $841million unrecovered.

For those who follow legislation closely, I would like to state, technically, what Bill C-253 would achieve if passed: it will amend the BIA to prohibit a court from approving an employer's proposal for bankruptcy if there are any unfunded liabilities or solvency deficiency in the associated pension plan of workers; it will require that any unfunded liability within the pension plan be paid in order for a court to approve an employer's bankruptcy plan and given them “super priority” status; it will amend the CCAA to require that an insolvent corporation entering into a “compromise”, which reprioritizes the payment of certain debts and liabilities over others, must pay unpaid amounts of any severance pay or compensation in lieu of notice.

There are some protections that Bill C-253 would not provide, and I would like to cover these.

My bill, Bill C-259, includes a provision that would prevent a judge, during a proceeding under the CCAA, from suspending benefits to employees or pensioners during the course of the proceedings. I think this is important and fair.

Another thing that Bill C-253 would not do is something new that I added to my version of the bill in this Parliament. It proposes to change the Pension Benefits Standards Act to allow the Superintendent of Financial Institutions to determine that the funding of a pension plan is underfunded and can order measures to be taken by the employer in order to correct the impairment.

I want to pass on some reflections on some commentary and quotes from the recent past on measures of these bills. For example:

I like the fact that the word “pension” means deferred income. When we go to work, work an eight-hour day or however many hours we put in, a great deal of consideration is given to the benefits that go beyond that hourly, weekly or monthly rate paid to us. A pension is a deferred income.

Who said that? It was the Parliamentary Secretary of the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, the member for Winnipeg North.

The Liberals campaigned on a promise to improve the income retirement security for all Canadian seniors. It is time for the government to put a stop to this organized theft.

I encourage Canadians watching to call their members of Parliament and ask them to vote in favour of Bill C-253 at second reading and help start the process of ending pension theft by large corporations.

We can also talk about Laurentian University, which is going through the same problem right now. This is devastating. The whole process is being abused and it must be fixed. People's lives are going to be turned upside down on this one. The government must step in and change legislation.

I thank hon. members for their time, and I hope the bill will be given the important consideration that it warrants. I recommend to everybody to send Bill C-253 to committee.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to remind the House of a historic moment. On May 20, 2016, during oral question period in the House of Commons, my dear Bloc Québécois colleague, the member for Manicouagan, asked the federal government if it would ensure that retirees are considered preferred creditors when companies go bankrupt.

The member asked this question after great misfortune struck the workers and pensioners of Cliffs Natural Resources. On January 27, 2015, the company announced that the affiliate operating its Bloom Lake facility on the North Shore had filed for protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act.

Since asking the federal government that question, my colleague has continued to work on this file, and I commend her for that. Her bill, which we are debating today, is so important.

Even so, the federal government has been sitting on this issue for around five years, all while companies like Cliffs, Sears, White Birch Paper and Groupe Capitales Médias went through restructuring. Anger is brewing among these companies' workers and pensioners, who feel like shareholders and senior executives walked away with their pension funds. It is a sad situation.

This has been going on for a long time. Conservatives and Liberals alike across several Parliaments propose bills, but the federal government never passes legislation and never protects pensions for workers and pensioners. The profits of executives and shareholders always come first.

I am sure that the vast majority of members in the House of Commons agree with the principle of protecting workers' pensions and the absolute need to end this injustice. Yes, I am calling it an injustice. Not protecting the pensions of workers and pensioners is nothing short of abetting an injustice in plain sight.

We need to put an end to this injustice with Bill C-253. We have to prevent other tragedies. Pensioners are in no position to go earn extra income. They are counting on a pension they paid into for their entire lives to ensure a certain quality of life. Since this is an injustice, we must stand together in solidarity and put mechanisms in place to protect them.

Canada is one of the most irresponsible countries in the world when it comes to protecting the pensions of workers and pensioners. This needs to change. The members of the House must seize this opportunity and pass Bill C-253. As MPs, we have a duty to fix the situation and amend the legislation to protect the pensions of workers and pensioners.

We need to do this for workers, pensioners and seniors, of course, but also for younger people who may not have access to the same social safety net. Unfortunately, things are not changing, and these tragedies will keep happening again and again in this globalized financial and industrial world. This world is going through a radical digital transformation, with more and more companies going through restructuring and the biggest, strongest players still crushing the smallest and weakest. It is the law of the market, the very essence of capitalism.

That is why we need to ensure that pension funds are bailed out and retirees' pensions are paid out in full. That is why we need to protect group insurance. That is why we need to take action to fix the situation and correct this injustice. If the responsibility is shared among everyone, it will be easier to bear.

We currently have two bankruptcy acts, one for businesses and one for individuals: the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act. These acts do not adequately protect workers' and retirees' pensions. Actually, they do not protect them at all. They do not protect group insurance either.

Currently, the law does not say anything about workers' group insurance. It is hard to see workers' and retirees' group insurance as a debt under the current regime if nobody tries to claim an amount to compensate pensioners for this loss.

The status quo is not an option for retired workers who have lost a significant chunk of their pension fund and their group insurance. Their rights were violated, and their anger must be appeased. This is a matter of dignity. I cannot imagine how angry a person would be if their hard-earned money were stolen. Injustice causes anger, and these retired workers feel that their days, their work, their creativity, their skill, their dedication and their trust were stolen from them. Their happiness and dignity were stolen from them.

Pensions are a major source of income for seniors. That financial flexibility completely changes the situation. It means more financial security and less stress for seniors in a world where everything seems to move so fast and, sometimes, in the wrong direction. This financial flexibility is essential to everyday life to pay for food, transportation, personal items, clothing, rent and fixed expenses.

This week, in the context of the budget, we spoke about the vulnerability of seniors. The budget does not solve everything. I recognize that there is something in the budget for seniors, but only for those 75 and over. Why create two classes of seniors? Why create unfairness? This bill also reminds us that not everyone has access to the same type of retirement. Perhaps the government should have been more generous to seniors in the budget by giving them additional ongoing assistance of $110 per month as of age 65. That would have helped them increase that financial flexibility that is so essential to their dignity and to the much-deserved pleasure of living the last years of their lives to the fullest after all their hard work.

What would Bill C-253 do? It would ensure fairer treatment for retired workers while maintaining fair treatment for creditors. It would amend the existing Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act such that, in the case of bankruptcy or restructuring, other creditors will not get access to what should be the workers' pension fund.

If the House of Commons passes this bill, there will finally be a law protecting workers and pensioners so they will never again lose their pension, which they earned by dint of hard work and dedication, sometimes at the cost of their physical and mental health. That last point is worth emphasizing.

The Bloc Québécois is obviously in favour of this bill, since it was introduced by one of our own. It is nearly identical to Bill C-372, which was introduced by the member for Manicouagan in 2016. This bill is the culmination of consultations with the people of the North Shore and with businesses and organizations in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois recognizes that a pension plan is a form of deferred wages and that it can help pensioners deal with the financial blow they are dealt when a former employer files for bankruptcy.

The bill would protect retired workers' group insurance plans, compel businesses to better fund their pension plans and enable the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to study this important social issue.

I want to acknowledge the chair and co-chair of the committee. The co-chair just spoke on behalf of the Conservatives. This is an issue we must consider very carefully and diligently. I serve with some amazing colleagues on this committee and the clerk and analysts do excellent work, so I know that the study called for in Bill C-253 will be both thorough and meaningful and that it will help resolve any impasses on this issue. The committee will have to find the time in our busy schedules to conduct this study.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-253 because it is a reasonable improvement that will help achieve the goal of protecting the pensions and group insurance of employees and pensioners. It will also improve the quality of life of our seniors, who, I should point out, are the most vulnerable members of the population.

Let us also not forget that pensioners use their pensions to spend hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in the businesses located in the towns and villages of our regions, and are therefore at the very heart of the Quebec economy. Bill C-253 is a step in the right direction and must pass.

As a final point, I would like to mention that I used to sit on the board of directors of the Quebec pension plan. I will therefore be very pleased to dive back into the issues surrounding the dignity of employees and people's quality of life.

I invite our colleagues to support this bill, and I truly hope they do.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

As we resume debate, I will remind the hon. member that there are only three minutes now for debate and he will be able to continue his speech thereafter.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is the second time today that this has happened, but it is fine. I look forward to continuing later on.

This is a very important bill, and I am really glad to see that this topic has been brought forward. Shortly after I was elected in 2015, I had the opportunity to meet with a number of executives from my riding, who were former executives of a DuPont plant in my riding, which is now Invista. They included former chief executive officer Peter Krause. He was leading the charge with this group of executives. What is really interesting is that they were not coming forward because they stood to gain from legislation like this, but because they were fighting on behalf of their friends, colleagues and people they came to know as family members. They were worried about Invista being owned by a multinational corporation and what that meant for their friends, the people they had worked with for 30 or 40 years.

They were looking specifically for what is in this legislation. Those executives were talking about the need to give superpriority to pension funds. I recall vividly having a number of conversations with them about it. I think I even had them come to Parliament Hill, and we had a meeting with a number of other MPs at the time and talked about it.

Before I get into some of the details on this, I must admit that, even though the government might not be voting in favour of the bill, I am very tempted personally to vote in favour of it. I cannot speak on behalf of the entire Liberal caucus, as the member for Carleton did earlier for the Conservatives, but I would be interested in hearing about what the committee could produce if they studied this and what recommendations they could give to secure pensions for so many people who are, quite frankly, worried. The reality of the situation is that we had a structure in place that did not allow people to contribute through RRSPs, or that significantly reduced this, because they were contributing through their employer into a pension. Now they are worried about how long their pensions will be around.

I am looking forward to continuing to talk about the legislation when it comes back around, but I will say that I am very much interested in it. At this stage, I can say that I think it is worthy of committee study.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.

It being 2:30 p.m., the House stands adjourned until Monday at 11 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 2:30 p.m.)