Madam Speaker, I think it is important for people who might be following the debate to understand why we are debating this today. If the member were to look, the member would see that we get hundreds of reports brought in from standing committees and that there are detailed responses to all of the reports. When the member stands up and asks me to tell him something about the report, if the member would like, if he does not have access to the Internet, I would be more than happy to provide him with the government's response to each and every one of the recommendations.
This is part of the issue. These concurrence reports typically mean that a standing committee has done wonderful work investigating a wide spectrum of issues, such as the issue we are talking about today. The reports then come back to the House for the House to concur in. There is already a detailed response. For example, I want to highlight recommendation number three because I think it cuts to the chase. This is after a great amount of discussion and debate in the committee. I am not too sure when this report was brought to the House, but I suspect it was quite a while ago. It is being used as a way to change the topic. However, instead of changing the topic, we should be dealing with government business and with private members' business.
I am trying to get the point across that we have witnessed, in the last nine weeks, borderline contempt of Parliament because we are not able to do the things we should be doing to serve all the people of Canada, including the people of Quebec, the people of Manitoba and people from coast to coast to coast.
The member asked a very good question. The member who introduced the concurrence report cited example after example of individuals, and we all know there are many people this is affecting. Equally, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are being ignored because we continue to allow the abuse of a matter of privilege, and we are not able to address the issues Canadians expect us to address.
If I go to the specific response, for example, on recommendation number three, it says, “That the Government of Canada immediately adopt regulations to make the Optional Survivor Benefit (OSB) available to both common-law spouses and legally married spouses.” If we go through the responses, there are a number of recommendations. I highlighted this one because I thought it was quite interesting to read the response to the report. It states, “The Government of Canada agrees with this recommendation as work is currently underway to amend the regulations under all three of the Federal Pension Plans (CFSA, RCMPSA, PSSA)”.
I will stop there because that is the reason I asked the person moving the motion, in regard to talking about the military. I hear a lot of sympathy for the military. I can assure all members of the chamber that I am very sympathetic, being someone who served in the Canadian Forces, and someone who marched on Remembrance Day with World War II veterans and with others. I fully understand the important role that families play. I am very interested to see how this issue can be advanced and can be addressed. However, we should also take into consideration, at the same time, the RCMP. I suggest that the same principles we apply here would also apply to the RCMP.
I would argue that if we were to talk to federal civil servants in Canada, we would find a very keen interest in the federal civil service also being able to qualify. I was not a part of the committee when they were having these discussions. I do know that, like many other issues committees deal with, they would come back with a report, and typically, if we were in agreement in trying to move the issue forward, we would concur in it. If we were to debate every report, we would never be able to have a private member's hour and would never be able to have government legislation pass. That is why my comments at the beginning were more so regarding my concern about what is happening on the floor of the House of Commons today.
We can now write off this whole fall session as a direct result of that, but we are coming back in the spring. I am hoping that we will see parties, whether it is the Bloc or it is the NDP, recognize that we need to move forward because that is in the best interest of Canadians
Let me continue on with that one recommendation because there is detail to it. It states, “The Government of Canada agrees with this recommendation as work is currently underway to amend the regulations under all three of the Federal Pension Plans...to make the Optional Survivor Benefit available to both common-law spouses and legally married spouses.”
I was standing up, hoping to get another question, because in some of the examples being raised by the New Democratic Party, she made reference to an individual who was not able to get married because of the pandemic. Common law, from my understanding, still would have applied. We need to ensure that, at the very least, we recognize that, because there is no doubt that it would not have been an issue for that couple in that situation. He was under 60. She did not make it perfectly clear, but it sounded as if they were potentially living as a common-law couple. That was worth noting.
This is noted in the government's response:
The CFSA, which governs the Canadian Armed Forces Pension Plans, contains provisions that permit a retired member to marry after retirement allowing the spouse to have survivor benefits upon their death, provided that they were married or entered a common law relationship prior to their 60th birthday—an age in line with the compulsory retirement age of a CAF member.
That is why I make reference to the whole issue of common law.
CAF Veterans who are members of the Regular Force Pension Plan and marry after the age of 60, excluding in common-law marriages, can provide this Optional Survivor Benefit for their new spouse if they apply for the Optional Survivor Benefit within one year of their marriage; and, they agree to reduce their current level of pension in exchange for providing a survivor pension to their new spouse in the event of their death. This means that a portion of the retired members’ pension would be reallocated to fund their spouses’ “survivor benefit.” This option is only revocable upon the death of the spouse or divorce and as noted previously is currently not an option for common-law relationships.
In looking at the details of the report, I say this because I am anticipating, unfortunately, that we will continue to see more concurrence reports being brought forward.
If there is a response, if the Conservatives really want to be able to contribute to the debate from an opposition perspective, what they should be doing is addressing the actual report that has been brought to the attention of the chamber. If they feel they want to have a debate and a vote on this, then they should be providing some detailed comments in response to the report. I would find that most interesting.
I have indicated that for every recommendation in the report, there is a response. I know that the Minister of Veterans Affairs very much approaches things with an open mind. We need to recognize that the issue involves not only Veterans Affairs; two or three departments ultimately have to coordinate any sort of changes.
Members should recognize that the government itself, whether it is the Prime Minister, me or my colleagues, is very much sympathetic. In fact, I believe that in the 2019 budget we allocated $150 million. That is a significant amount of money. I know there was some ridicule a bit earlier with respect to that money's not necessarily having been accessed, but it was allocated. The government is in fact interested in pursuing the issue in a positive way.
I would suggest that we look at ways, as a Parliament, particularly on the floor of the House of Commons, to somehow get over the privilege issues, stop some of the concurrence motions that are coming and get on to the legislative agenda of the government, private members' bills and so forth.
Having said that, I move:
That this question be now put.