moved:
That the government consider the advisability of increasing the pension accrual rate for firefighters to allow them to retire with adequate financial provisions for their retirement.
Mr. Speaker, Canada's professional firefighters have a long and proud history of protecting the lives and property of their neighbours. For their selflessness and service to the public they rightly enjoy the respect and admiration of the Canadian people and the members of the House. I am confident that we all share the same image of the professional firefighter: a highly trained, courageous man or woman who assists us when emergencies arise.
The image is certainly accurate. I know first-hand the great job that our firefighters perform. I would imagine that members remember the date 1958. I remember it as a child of six years. At around 2 o'clock in the morning I remember my father crashing through the farmhouse telling all of us to get up, get dressed and get out of the house because the barn was on fire. The building that burned that night was a three story structure, 40' by 175', 21,000 square feet. I can remember the firefighters that night trying to save the barn and finally having to give up. They then tried to save our farmhouse, which they succeeded in doing. I remember them hooking a tractor onto a huge propane tank beside the barn, disconnecting the tank and getting it away before it left a very large hole in the ground. They were successful.
I remember that the individuals who fought the fire that night took their lives in their hands on a number of different instances. It is something that has been branded on my mind and in my memory. I will carry with me as long as I live the memory of what happened that night.
Perhaps there are other members in the House who have also benefited from such bravery and professionalism during an emergency situation, or who have at least witnessed firefighters in action at the scene of a fire, an accident, a medical emergency or some other kind of emergency.
We owe the firefighters a debt of gratitude. There is no question about it. In the name of fairness and in the hopes of correcting a long-standing inequity, I rise today to share another image of the professional firefighter, one not so widely known but accurate nonetheless. I am talking about the individual firefighter who spends 30 years in a career that has one of the highest rates of on the job injury and illness, who faces the result of a career spent in the line of toxic substances, communicable diseases and a myriad of dangerous situations. It should be noted that while other Canadian workers have the right to refuse dangerous workplace situations, the professional firefighter does not enjoy the same right. Danger is an everyday reality for them. It is part of the job.
According to data collected by the International Association of Fire Fighters, which represents 17,000 professional firefighters and emergency medical personnel in Canada, firefighters experience the highest rate of job related injury and illness of any sector of the workforce. In 1997 almost one in three firefighters suffered an injury or illness in the line of duty, far exceeding and in fact tripling the rate of injury and illness experienced in other sectors such as mining, construction, manufacturing or agriculture. I am a farmer and I know the injury level in agriculture.
Several studies have showed a link between the occupation of firefighting, heart disease and certain types of cancer. This is as a result of a firefighter's exposure during the course of a career to toxic substances encountered while attacking blazes in chemical and industrial settings, a type of fire that is becoming more and more common in Canada.
We all remember too well the fire that raged for four days in July of 1997 at the Plastimet recycling facility in Hamilton, Ontario. More than 100 Hamilton firefighters were exposed to burning polyvinyls. They fought to save the city from this toxic inferno and were successful. However, the long term health effects on these firefighters may not be known for several years.
To give the House an example of that, I had a chance to talk to these firefighters last year when they were in Ottawa. Two of the fire trucks that were involved in that blaze were aluminium. They were totalled by the chemicals. The trucks could not be repaired and they had to do away with them. The firefighters were exposed to those same chemicals.
In a past experience, a toxic fire at a Saskatoon landfill site in 1982 illustrated that the long term health effects are in fact a sad reality. Six of the 12 firefighters who fought that blaze are dead. Cancers have been diagnosed among those who survived.
To give another illustration, one month ago the International Association of Fire Fighters added the names of more than 50 firefighters from across North America to its memorial in Colorado Springs. All of them were firefighters who died in the line of duty during the previous 12 months. This is the highest number of names added to the memorial in a given year. It is another reason why I think it is appropriate that we deal with this motion today.
I remind the members that line of duty means the same as in the course of saving lives and properties of people in the communities.
Canada's Income Tax Act recognizes the dangerous nature of firefighting and deems firefighters to be members of a public safety occupation. This permits them to retire early at age 55, which has long been considered to be in the best interests of firefighters and the communities they serve.
However, there is a problem with the regulation in that it stops there. It permits firefighters to retire at age 55 but it does not contain any mechanism to allow them to make up for the retirement incomes they forfeit because of an early retirement. This is a definite inequity which has robbed many firefighters and their families of the right to retire with dignity and with financial security.
It is an inequity that the International Association of Fire Fighters has been raising with the Canadian government since the 1970s. This is too long. It is an inequity that our firefighters have endured long enough.
It is time to add concrete regulatory action to the respect and admiration we give our professional firefighters. As it stands, a firefighter retiring at the age of 55 with 30 years of accredited service will retire with 60% of his or her pre-retirement income according to the 2% annual accrual rate that he or she and other Canadians contribute to their registered pensions. This is just too low when the government identifies 70% of the pre-retirement income as a benchmark for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living in retirement.
For three years now a proposal has existed which would correct this injustice. It involves a very simple regulatory change to the Income Tax Act, something that can be done easily and without rewriting the legislation. It involves a regulatory increase in the yearly accrual rate for professional firefighters' registered pensions from the current 2% to 2.33% for the years of accredited service.
Why 2.33%? This is the magic number for firefighters. With a 2.33% accrual rate, a firefighter who retires at age 55 after 30 years of service will achieve 70% of his or her pre-retirement income reaching that important benchmark for the quality of life in retirement. Again, this regulatory change can be done very easily and it would come at no cost to the Canadian government or the Canadian taxpayer. This is a win-win situation.
This is long overdue. It is a regulatory change. It is simply the first step in pension fairness for firefighters. It would allow the higher accrual rate to be negotiated and reflected in provincial pension plans. The final ingredient comes at the collective bargaining process at the local level. However, it starts here at the federal level.
Less than one year ago the Standing Committee on Finance released its report to the finance minister. In the report the committee, after listening to a compelling presentation from the International Association of Fire Fighters during its prebudget consultation exercise, acknowledged the inequity in firefighters' pensions and recommended that the finance minister consider taking action in correcting it.
Shortly afterwards, in April of this year, professional firefighters from across Canada descended on Parliament Hill during their annual lobbying conference. Of the 154 MPs who met with the firefighters, 101 of them, a full two-thirds, said that they supported an increase in the accrual rate for firefighters' registered pension plans in the name of fairness.
Support for this initiative and other methods of pension fairness for our nation's professional firefighters was voiced in the House in April echoing the growing chorus of support for this initiative. As it stands, there is no concrete action toward correcting this injustice. This is our opportunity to provide meaningful pension reform for Canada's heroes.
Let us not let it slip away. Let us take this opportunity to tell our professional firefighters and the people of Canada that we recognize the sacrifices that firefighters make in the course of their career. We are prepared to take action on their very legitimate concern about their right to retire with dignity and with security.
Firefighters are not asking to be put on a level above Canadian workers, they are asking to be treated the same. They are asking the government to enact a regulatory change under the Income Tax Act that will allow them to retire with the same standard of living as other working Canadians.
