Madam Speaker, I asked a question several days ago on the Liberals' broken promise to eliminate the marriage after 60 clause. Veterans and RCMP retirees are reaching out to me because this issue is still not fixed.
Just so Canadians understand, this clause was created in the early 1900s and it prevents the spouses of veterans and RCMP retirees, as well as any federal public servant, from receiving a pension after the death of their partner if they marry after 60. This clause is a relic that should belong in a sexist history. It is still known under the name of “the gold-digger clause”, as it was created to prevent young women from marrying older veterans to get their pension when they died.
It is still in place today. How is that for a feminist government? It was wrong then, and it is wrong now.
What we know is that veterans' spouses in this category are often in poverty. In fact, some veterans stop taking part of their pension while they are living so their spouses will have something when they die, which can mean veterans and their spouses live in poverty for years so that if the spouses live longer they are not completely without an income.
Fundamentally, the federal government is punishing veterans for marrying after 60. This is sexist, as well as ageist. I know of one couple, for example, who were going to get married. COVID prevented the wedding from happening, and then the veteran turned 60. Now what do they do?
The government's plan is to study this, study this very small population of largely impoverished women so the government can find them. I appreciate the importance of studies. However, this small population is in desperate need. Veterans are worried about the future of their partners.
In the 2015 and 2017 mandate letters to the ministers of Veterans Affairs, the PM was very clear and instructed the ministers to eliminate the marriage after 60 pension clawback. Sadly, this mandate was not found in the most recent 2019 or 2020 mandate letters.
The Liberals promised to eliminate the clause in the 2019 campaign, but instead created the veterans survivors fund in the 2019 budget, with $150 million over five years. This funding was panned to many organizations, including the National Council of Veteran Associations, the Armed Forces Pensioners' Association, and the RCMP Veterans' Association. To date, not one penny of the fund has been spent.
It is very clear that this issue for a relatively small population is just not a priority for the government. The government could eliminate this clause, have an application process for the spouses, and this issue would be resolved. Instead, the spouses of retired RCMP officers and veterans who married after 60 continue to remain poor.
When will the government fix this? How long will it take? VAC has funded two studies on this issue. The first is through the Canadian Institute for Military and Veteran Health Research and was completed recently by UBC professor Dr. Eric Li. In his executive summary, he states that he was able to include only seven survivors and three veterans in his study. Even with that small sample size, the primary recommendation is that VAC reconsider the criteria for inheriting a veteran's pension.
The second study is through Statistics Canada, which sent its preliminary results to VAC one month ago. The results were supposed to be made public by summer 2020, but now we are being told to wait until 2022.
Was the government expecting these studies to produce a result other than the need to eliminate the marriage after 60 clause? Everyone, and I mean everyone, who is affected by this clause has called for the government simply to eliminate it. Even the Prime Minister wanted it to happen, so why the delay?