Claude Gravelle

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her question. I would simply say in response that the Conservative government will stop at nothing to violate Canadians' rights.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the reason we do not support this pooled pension plan is that there are no benefits to it.

When people invest their money in the stock market—which is what the government wants, seniors investing in the stock market—and the stock market falls, the pension plan falls. Therefore, the seniors who lose their money in the stock market would not have a retirement pension plan.

If today's seniors want to invest and have the extra money, albeit there are people in this country who do not have extra money to invest in RRSPs, they can do that now. What we would like to do is increase the CPP and the QPP to include everyone in Canada who could contribute to and collect from the CPP and the QPP.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very good question. She is quite right.

The Conservative government's plan will force Canadians to invest their money in the markets. Everyone knows what happens when the market drops: pension plans shrink and Canadians no longer have the money to retire.

This is the NDP's plan: we want to increase the CPP and the QPP to lift the poorest people out of poverty. The members on this side of the House are aware that only the poorest seniors receive old age security. The government's plan will make the poorest even poorer. The poorest of the poor, especially women, will be affected, not the rich.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today and speak on Bill C-25, an act relating to pooled registered pension plans. In truth, it is legislation from the Conservative government that is really a savings scheme, not a pension plan. Like the omnibus Trojan Horse budget bill, it reminds Canadians of the mess the Conservatives have created for Canada and for our pensioners.

This hole that Canadians find themselves in becomes unacceptable, especially when we see the shovels in the hands of the Conservative government digging the hole.

Let us separate fact from fiction in the government's spin on being good managers of the economy. In fact, the Conservatives' us-them, winners and losers ideology has exposed them as very bad managers of the economy.

Fact number one is that 1.6 million seniors live in poverty.

Fact number two is that 12 million Canadians lack a workplace pension plan.

Fact number three is that most Canadian workers have no RRSPs, but the proposed legislation advises that they invest despite disastrous investment returns.

Fact number four is that last year, only 31% of eligible Canadians contributed to RRSPs. How little money Canadians really have for their RRSPs is evident in the fact that unused RRSP room now exceeds $500 billion.

Fact number five is that the Conservatives tolerate overall poverty numbers of around 10%, one in every ten Canadians. They write off three million Canadians from contributing to productivity or paying taxes. The Ontario food bank estimates that the bill to Canada that the Conservative government writes off is costing our country close to $90 billion.

Facing all these facts, what do the Conservatives do? They bring forward legislation with limited benefits for the self-employed and for those with small and medium-sized businesses. They stick with our country's miserly pension plan rather than bringing it up to the level of other countries that more fairly and generously look after their seniors.

The proposed legislation would do nothing to fix our pension crisis. There is too little money on the revenue side for our country precisely because of the spending and the deep hole that the Conservative government has dug with its ideology-driven priorities.

There is no money for Canadian seniors and their pensions because the Conservative government ignores a declining crime rate and goes on a multi-billion dollar spending spree on crime that the provinces say they do not want and cannot afford.

There is no money for seniors, but there is money for F-35 fighter jets. There is money for a minister's $16 glass of orange juice and money to spend on search and rescue personnel to ferry the Minister of National Defence on his own errands.

The Prime Minister has said that the Canada pension plan is adequately self-financing, but “for those elements of the system that are not funded, we will make the changes necessary to ensure sustainability.”

What changes does the government propose? It plans to cut old age security, denying it to seniors who are 65 and 66. This program provides $526.85 a month to seniors below the income cut-off.

New Democrats recognize the demographics in our country showing that the number of Canadians older than 65 will double in the next 20 years. We also recognize that the pension plan is financially sustainable in its various demands, up and down, over the next 20 years.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has backed us up with strong evidence, but what is increasingly having Canadians lose confidence in the government is its failure to manage the economy and deal with the inequality that exists in our communities.

There is less money for seniors because of ridiculous spending decisions by the Conservative government. It reduced corporate taxes and had ministers for the G8 spending like drunken sailors.

We on this side of the House have no problem with an honest dialogue with Canadians about belt-tightening, about hard choices that have to be made regarding our pensions and pensioners. However, we will not frame these choices as the Prime Minister does, ignoring the facts and making our seniors pay.

Let us be clear: our seniors and future pensioners need protection and real help. Pool registered pension plans fail to protect retirement security because they encourage families to gamble even more of their retirement savings on failing stock markets. Anyone who has watched the RRSP plummet over the past years knows how risky savings tied to the stock market are.

How out of touch can the Conservative government be to sell such a scheme to Canadians?

The bill is designed to appeal to the self-employed and workers at small and medium-sized firms, companies that often lack the means by which to administer a private sector plan.

The plan created would be a defined contribution plan. Employees would contribute a portion of their salary into the retirement account, where it could be invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, et cetera. Some companies would make a matching contribution, up to a certain percentage. The account would grow through contributions and investment earnings until retirement.

In such a direct contribution plan, there are no guarantees about how much of a person's money will be left when he or she retires. The risks are borne entirely by the individual. In these types of plans, the amount of money available at retirement depends upon the outcome of the investments, which cannot be relied upon. Defined contribution plans lack the security of defined benefit pension plans like the CPP and the QPP, which pay a guaranteed set amount upon retirement.

There is also the profit margin taken from these plans by the regulated financial institution, such as banks, insurance companies and trust funds. Bill C-25 also fails to place a cap on administration fees or costs and merely assumes lower costs will emerge through competition in the marketplace, and unlike the CPP and the QPP, the pooled pension plan would not be indexed to inflation.

On the other hand, the NDP has put forward a series of retirement income security proposals that would bring genuine security to our pensioners.

We want to double the guaranteed CPP-QPP benefits, to a maximum of $1,920 each month. Growing the CPP and QPP is the best and lowest-cost pension reform option we have.

We have committed to work with the provinces to build the flexibility of individuals and their employers to make voluntary contributions to individual public pension accounts. We would amend federal bankruptcy legislation to move pensioners and long-term disability recipients to the front of the line of creditors when their employers enter court protection or declare bankruptcy.

New Democrats would increase the annual guaranteed income supplement to a sufficient level, in the first budget, to lift every senior in Canada out of poverty immediately.

These are real reforms. This is the real help for seniors barely getting by or workers forced to delay a hard-earned retirement.

Let me quote the commentary of the Canadian Labour Congress on this bad bill.

The proposed PRPPs [pooled registered pension plans] do not guarantee low management fees that would prevent large management fees from eating up such a large portion of your savings. In fact, there is only a promise that the design of PRPP will result in large pools of capital that might lower fees, with no guaranteed or legislated results. Nothing in the PRPP proposal sets management expenses at levels equal to or lower than those of the CPP. As a result, CPP is still a better deal than PRPP; not only because of its guaranteed indexed retirement income, but because of its much lower management fees.

The government is already engaged in damage control on trying to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67. It is trying to reassure seniors that it would not affect those now retired or soon to be retired. What the government should be afraid of is the large number of Canadians aged 50 to 65, the people who vote in this country, who are seeing freedom 55, and now freedom 65, slip away.

Our seniors have worked hard and managed their budgets, only to see the government dig this very deep hole by giving up revenue it would have had from corporations and spending it on its priorities that are now not the priorities of many Canadians.

This will be the fight of their lives. New Democrats will join this fight. We need to value our seniors, not beat up on them.

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 7th, 2012]

With regard to the Canadian Home Insulation Program: (a) how many buildings were insulated under this program, and, of these, how many were insulated with Zonolite; (b) is there a database containing the addresses of these buildings; and (c) has the government notified the occupants of these buildings of the possible presence of Zonolite in their building?

[Points of Order, June 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday when we were debating the Trojan Horse budget bill and the member for Oak Ridges—Markham was responding to a question from the Liberal member for Kingston and the Islands, I let my emotions get the better of me and I want to apologize to my colleagues across the aisle, as well as to the Speaker, and ask that my remarks be withdrawn.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I was not calling him disgusting. I was calling what he was saying disgusting. Lying to the Canadian public is disgusting, and it should be held as that.

[BUSINESS OF SUPPLY, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, absolutely, if the member from that side of the House wants to apologize to Canadians for misleading them and saying that the NDP voted against this and voted against that and we do not know what we are voting against, I will consider apologizing to him.

[Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, May 29th, 2012]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla letting us know about this. However, I want to make sure that he knows that we will be introducing some amendments, and those amendments are about making the wine with 100% Canadian grapes.

How can anybody oppose using 100% Canadian grapes? We cannot oppose that.

Hopefully, the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla is going to accept these amendments, maybe as friendly amendments, and we can put that in the bill. The only people we would be helping if we did that would be the people in the Canadian wine industry.

[Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, May 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise here today in the House to speak to this bill. I congratulate the member for Okanagan—Coquihalla for introducing this bill.

Like many other Canadians, before this bill was introduced, I did not realize that it was illegal to transport wine from one province to another. I guess that made a lot of us unknowing criminals. Maybe those are the unknown crimes that the Minister of Public Safety was talking about when he introduced his legislation. I am not sure, but a lot of us have been guilty of transporting wine from province to province unknowingly.

I recently visited my son, who lives in Revelstoke, and of course at family gatherings we had a bit of wine from the Okanagan Valley. I can assure members that it is really good wine, although some very good wines are also being made in Ontario, Nova Scotia and in Quebec.

With all of the “grapes of wrath” happening here on the omnibus bill and the harm to our workers, it is a relief to take a moment to look at some of the other grapes, an important and growing market of our country, that we see in B.C., in Niagara and Prince Edward County in Ontario, in Quebec and more.

Recently I had the occasion to have dinner across the river in Gatineau, and as is usual I was brought a bottle of wine and asked to taste it. In this case, the waiter brought some imported wine from another country, and I told him I would like to drink a good Canadian wine if possible.

He only had one bottle of Canadian wine in stock, which is quite unfortunate, but the bottle of wine he had was from the Okanagan Valley. It was probably the best wine I have ever tasted. I said it was unfortunate that he only had one bottle in stock. It was fortunate for me, but it was unfortunate that the other people in the restaurant could not get to taste this wonderful wine. I hear my colleague from British Columbia supporting this great wine from British Columbia.

We in the NDP are going to support this legislation. We want to get it to the finance committee for proper study and amendments. On many levels I like this bill, which would relax restrictions on interprovincial wine purchasing for personal use.

I will read into the record the amendment that we want to add. This amendment has to do with making the wine with 100% Canadian grapes.

The amendment would add these words: “The importation of wine from a province where the wine is made with 100% Canadian grapes, by an individual if the individual brings the wine or causes it to brought into another province in quantities, and as permitted by law of the latter province, for his or her personal consumption and not for resale or other commercial use.”

This amendment would help to promote Canadian wines. It would help the producers of Canadian wines. It may cause us to have to relabel the bottles of wine, but that is a small price to pay to promote the Canadian wine industry.

We would get good consumer choice. This would give Canadians a bigger choice in buying wines. Canadians would strongly benefit from a greater selection of wine, especially wineries from across Canada. There are many small wineries across this great country, and this would promote Canadian producers. We grow a lot of grapes in Canada, and this would certainly encourage wineries to maybe expand and create more employment. Nothing but good would come out of this bill.

For wine producers, a beneficial effect of the bill would be an expanded market for Canadian wineries. As I said, transporting more wine from one province to the next is certainly good for the wine industry.

Although we know we have very good wine in British Columbia, we also have some very good wines in Ontario, especially icewines, and one of the things that the bill would do is allow people from British Columbia to discover the great wines of Ontario. From Nova Scotia to British Columbia, the Canadian wine industry is emerging as internationally recognized cool-climate wine producers, garnering an impressive list of awards and praise from many of the world's most influential wine critics.

Just recently on Parliament Hill, we had some companies come out for a wine tasting evening. We tasted some of probably the best wines made in the world, wines that have won many awards. Some of these wines are known right around the world as being great wines.

On average, capital expenditures for industry have increased from about 12% annually. The softening of the law would allow for greater choice, while still preserving the provincial monopoly power for each liquor board. Of course, allowing liquor boards to bring more wines from outside their province would certainly help all wine producers right across the board.

Under current legislation, if an individual wishes to purchase wine that is available only in a province other than one in which he or she resides, the individual must make the purchase through a provincial or territorial liquor board, commission or corporation and must pay the associated taxes, markup rates and other special levies on alcohol. Again, as I said a while ago, most Canadians do not know that doing otherwise is against the law, so I am sure that this would help.

As it stands right now, the industry and the public consider that the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, also called the IILA, administered by the Canada Revenue Agency, is the cause of the restricted trade. In reality, the combination of the IILA and provincial legislation makes this trade illegal. It is the provinces' legislation that makes it illegal, so we should work with the provinces to change this legislation and support Bill C-311. I am sure this would help everyone, not only the—