SECURITY OF LEGISLATIVE BUILDING
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, before the orders of the day, the House leaders had discussed the debate this evening and agreed that the time would be shared equally by the three parties and that we would ask the table to keep track of the time. I assume it would be approximately 50 minutes for each party.
ORDERS OF THE DAY
SELECT COMMITTEE ON PENSIONS
Resuming the adjourned debate on the motion for adoption of the recommendations contained in the first report of the select committee on pensions.
Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, I consider it an honour to start off the debate this evening on the interim report of the select committee on pensions as the vice-chairman of the committee. It is regrettable that our chairman, the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor), had a commitment which took him away from the Legislature this evening and that he was unable to participate in the debate. So it is my privilege to lead off the debate in his place.
I think, first and foremost, it is somewhat misleading for a person who looks at the interim report of the select committee if one considers the terms of reference. Of all of the select committees I have had an opportunity to participate in and be a member of since I became a member of this Legislature, I cannot recall a committee report that had such brief terms of reference. In fact, it is a one-liner, so to speak, because our terms of reference are simply that a select committee of this House be appointed to inquire into and review the recommendations of the report of the Royal Commission on the Status of Pensions in Ontario and make recommendations as appropriate.
I say they are misleading because in that simple direction is couched a very onerous responsibility, which charges the members of the committee with dealing with a very complex and involved issue, perhaps an issue more complex and more involved than any other that has been assigned to a select committee of this Legislature in recent times. It is in that sense that I suggest it is misleading.
As I am sure other members will do, as has been done publicly in so many other forums by so many other people, I have to commend the royal commission, its chairman, Donna Haley, and its members in coming forward with such a profound and comprehensive report as the royal commission report. It has presented a real challenge to members of this select committee. It is our fondest hope that we will be able to live up to the responsibilities of coming forward with recommendations based on the substance of that royal commission report.
As members of the Legislature will appreciate, this is an interim report, and one that was brought forward in record time considering the various and many aspects and facets of this issue. The committee was able through its summer sittings to come forward with some recommendations that were, if I could say, of a less controversial nature. They are 18 in number, and are set out and summarized in the back of the report itself.
As is stated throughout the report, there are many other major areas of concern that the members of the committee have yet to address. It is not that we have not already considered many of the other major issues upon which we have as yet not been able to make recommendations, but simply that the scope of those issues and their complexities defy our ability to deal with them in that short time period.
Consequently, in order to show to the people of the province and those people throughout the country, the citizenry who are involved in the pension issue, that real progress is being made in this area, we felt it important to come forward at this time with some specific recommendations, albeit that are contained only in an interim report and that do not in any way deal completely with the issue.
I think it is interesting and encouraging to see that already the recommendations which we have brought forward have been recognized by the Treasurer of Ontario (Mr. F. S. Miller). It is interesting too, to see that the private sector is responding quickly, and I think in a responsible way, to the activities of our committee. We recognize that what this committee recommends may in large measure chart new directions for pension reform in this country that will impact on our society, not only within Ontario but throughout the whole of the country, through the end of this century and well into the twenty-first century.
It is with this real sense of responsibility that we have taken up the challenge and in taking up that challenge we have, in effect, thrown down the gauntlet to the private sector and I suppose to other levels of government as well, to consider what approaches we are taking to this very important social issue.
I say it is of interest to note that the Treasurer has made recent pronouncements that indicate our current recommendations have not gone unnoticed. It is interesting that since the report was issued on November 3, no less than two major pension conferences have been held within the Metropolitan Toronto area alone, indicating the high degree of interest being shown in this subject in the private sector, sparked in large measure, I suggest, by the activities of our committee.
8:10 p.m.
The Canadian Pension Conference held a pension seminar on November 5, and I know a number of the members of our committee attended another pension conference on November 16 and 17 that was sponsored by the Financial Executives Institute Canada. It was at that latter conference I noted that the Treasurer made some comments and indicated support for a number of the recommendations made in our interim report. The Treasurer has indicated support for the concept of the vesting and locking in of pensions after five years of service. He also indicates support for the employer paying one half of the deferred benefit for mobile employees who contribute more to the plan than their deferred benefit. He recognizes the legitimacy of the payment of reasonable interest rates on withdrawn contributions.
Of very significant importance is the fact that he has shown support -- at least if we can take his comments at that conference at face value, and I think we must -- for pension adjustments financed on the excess interest philosophy, which is a principle our own committee has also shown support for. Further, the minister has shown support for a mandatory spousal benefit for all plans and, last but not least, support for a locked-in registered retirement savings plan to improve portability, if we should go one of the three routes open to us: namely, opening up the area of pension reform to the initiative of the private sector.
The limited time available to us this evening, based on the arrangements for sharing of time on the debate, precludes any of us from going in any great depth into the 18 recommendations and, indeed, into those other major recommendations that have yet to come forward. With regard to the interim report, there was, as indicated, general concurrence therein, save and except with regard to one of the recommendations. It is regrettable that the recommendation about which there was some difference of opinion, and which led to a minority opinion being registered with regard to the report, sparked some controversy when the report was first introduced into the Legislature.
As one who participated in the dissenting opinion, I would want in the few moments remaining to me simply to set the issue straight and, for the purposes of the record, indicate the reasons for seeing the need to file a minority position with regard to the second recommendation. That second recommendation in the interim report provides that until changes can be made to increase the guaranteed income supplement as recommended, the government of Ontario should increase without delay the payment for the guaranteed annual income system to bring single persons up to the adequacy level of available income recommended for the year in which the increase is made.
This particular second recommendation complements the first recommendation, which was unanimously supported by all members of the committee without any equivocation or qualification whatsoever, It is that first recommendation, of course, that recognizes the plight of the single persons in our society who are living in a state of less than what appears to be adequate income.
The first recommendation was, "The government of Ontario should by immediate negotiation seek to increase basic payment levels of the guaranteed income supplement to remedy any inadequacy in the level of available income received by single persons and to implement the recommended ratio between single and married persons without delay so that the single person receives about 60 per cent of the amount that a married couple receives." This had the full and unanimous support of all members of the committee.
The reason for the dissension with regard to the complementary second recommendation was that, in the minds of some of us on the committee, there was not sufficient information before the committee of a financial nature that could justify the committee drawing the conclusion that the province, while it might be desirable for it to proceed on its own initiative, had the financial capability or capacity to do so.
There is nothing, either in the summary of the royal commission report or in the supporting backup documents, that really spells out the full cost of Ontario going on its own by enriching the guaranteed annual income system without benefit of complementary support from the federal program under the GIS.
This is what gave some members of the committee a great deal of concern, because we felt there had not been adequate time or information made available to assess clearly the ability of the province to do something we would desire to do hut were not aware whether we had the financial ability to do.
As a committee, to preserve our integrity as ones who had looked at these issues closely, I think we had to be able to justify making that recommendation and fortifying it by constructive action we know could be attainable by virtue of the financial resources of Ontario. Those resources and the ability to make them available were at the very least not known to exist to us, based on what sketchy information we had.
It is interesting to note, in concluding on this point, that even within the body of the backup volumes of the royal commission report, the commission itself conceded, in dealing with the cost considerations of enriching the Gains program. "Because of the difficulty in calculating partial payment levels, the commission did not undertake the extensive work involved in making estimates for increased costs, but there undoubtedly will be an increase in costs that will not he welcome in a time of government spending restraint."
That seemed to be the sum total and substance of the financial analysis of what the consequences would be of implementing recommendation two. It appears that not even the royal commission had an opportunity to calculate those costs clearly and thoroughly so as to give the members of the select committee an opportunity to make an informed opinion as to our ability actually to act upon such a recommendation as set out in recommendation two.
For those reasons, I wanted to set out why it was felt necessary to raise a caution with regard to recommendation two because there is no evidence that we could implement that recommendation, desirous as it may be, without joint venturing with the federal authorities by comparable expansion of the GIS program, which is what I think is being called for, not only on a provincial but on a national basis.
I think this province would be one of the first to support an expansion of the GIS program with Gains being complementary to it, but I do not think it can be handled in a reverse order. It is for that reason we felt it imperative to introduce that dissenting opinion.
I understand we each have approximately 15 minutes and, for that reason, regrettably I have to terminate my remarks at this time. I am sure an opportunity will arise in future when I can elaborate further on other main features of the report. At this point, I am looking forward to the success we have achieved to date. I look forward to working with all committee members in the new year to, hopefully, come forth with a final report that will give new direction and impetus to pension reform in this province.
8:20 p.m.
Mr. Peterson: Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise on behalf of my party. Not all the things I say at this point are necessarily a party position. I am sure my colleague who will be speaking tonight may have a different emphasis on certain other points. I am most happy to have this debate in the House tonight. am one of those people who has been intimately involved with this subject for a number of years. The member for Armourdale (Mr. McCaffrey), now the Minister without Portfolio, is another member who has taken a great interest. Increasingly, I see an augmentation of interest in this whole area. No doubt this issue is terribly significant to the future of this province and this country.
I have quoted Grant Reuber before, former chairman of the Ontario Economic Council, former Deputy Minister of Finance, former vice-president of the University of Western Ontario and presently vice-president of the Bank of Montreal. I remember he once told me the whole pension question is of more significance than the energy question for the future of this country. I think it must be seen in those terms.
The problem is its incredible complexity. Frankly, it is beyond the grasp of most people and even those of us who have studied this for a while and have been involved in the select committee hearings had difficulty with a lot of the complex issues involved. Of course, it is boring. My friend the member for Oriole just proved that. It is not a very exciting subject.
I come to you at the outset, Mr. Speaker, saying I enjoyed the experience very much and I enjoyed participating in that committee with you. I thought it functioned well and was a relatively nonpartisan group. Even though my friends to the left considered themselves the official spokesmen for the Ontario Federation of Labour and the Canadian Labour Congress at the time, nevertheless, it was a constructive and worthwhile exercise for all of us. I enjoyed not only the experience, but getting to know some of the members from your side, Mr. Speaker, whom I did not know before. We worked together to solve difficult issues, not just now but in the future.
I would be remiss at the beginning if I did not pay credit to a person I consider an absolutely first-class civil servant and one to whom I owe a great debt. He is Wells Bentley. He was a magnificent man to work with and I admire him greatly. I was so grateful for his very didactic way. He instructed and taught us all very well. He was most patient with our repetitious questions, and he was of immeasurable benefit and help to that committee.
I had quoted Wells on numerous occasions before but I did not really know I had done so. He said the complete pension system in Ontario is a mess. I quoted that in the House one day and Wells was not very happy about that quotation. He said it got him into trouble a little later, but he is the first one to admit it.
He is the first one who has been working hard not only in this province but across the country to bring some order to this disorganized subject. I just want to say again what a great privilege it was to work with Wells Bentley. He is a testament to something I believe in, that there should not be compulsory retirement at age 65. Wells is about to retire, yet he is as active and nimble now as he ever was. He is one of those civil servants I would like to urge and beg to come back and stay with this province for years to come, to work with us to implement some of the proposals we have been dealing with so far.
As we all recognize in this committee report, we do not have the answer for a number of issues. We are not terribly sure at this time. We still have to wrestle with the problem. We want the pension commission to review some issues in a year or two or three to make sure we did not make a mistake. I think there would be no more able captain for that ship as we go through this period of major change and evolution of the system than Wells. I just wanted to say that again publicly, and I am sure every member shares my view. It was a pleasure working with the man. I think he should have our great gratitude.
Another thing I want to say at this time is what a pleasure it was to work with Richard Jennings from the library staff. To me, it was an example of the library functioning as it should in this House. He was a first-rate, able, young researcher; he was with the committee, grasped the issues and was able to come up with the information we all needed and requested -- and some of the requests were outrageous, but he always delivered on them. He made sense and order out of a lot of intellectual perambulation. I am grateful to him.
I understand he has left the library service and has been co-opted by a ministry. I am sorry to hear that, because it would have been fun to work with him the next go-round also. I think he did a fine job of putting this report in order, and Richard deserves our credit and respect.
I should say also I found that every single witness, including the civil servants who worked with us in a nonpartisan, decent and open way, was wrestling with the problems as we were. Nobody has the single answer to any of these questions. There are a lot of imponderables. There are a lot of calculations we cannot make. There are a lot of things that come back to our basic philosophy in the way we view our present responsibility as well as our future responsibility.
We are all very cognizant that the things we do now have the potential to bind future generations very much. We are all very conscious that we have the right as legislators now to create legal obligations that may or may not be worth while in the future and may financially bind the people who come after us so tightly that we might bankrupt them or put them in a position where they would be not be able to deliver on the legal obligations we have legislatively created.
I believe that makes us all approach this subject with some caution, to make sure that what we are doing not only is right now but also will be right 10,20,30,40 and 50 years from now. This is one of those few subjects that we as legislators deal with that do bind people for that long.
It takes so long to fully fund a program. The provincial universal retirement system, for example, if we happen to go for that, and that has yet to be determined, will take 47 years to mature. That is a staggeringly long time in terms of the current problems and the poverty of a number of retirees today. At the same time, we have an obligation not to bankrupt future generations or create such massive intergenerational transfers of wealth that we are being unfair to one generation at the expense of another.
I am conscious of those kinds of considerations. But, ultimately, all of us have to look to our political or philosophical predisposition when we make a determination of some of these thorny gut questions, only a few of which the consequences are economic and many of which are social.
From that point of view, I say again what a pleasure it was to participate in this committee. I guess my only regret at this time is that it looks unlikely that I am going to be able to participate in the next session. I regret that very much, because in many ways the next session is going to be the most interesting one.
We have a minor dissent on this report. I am convinced at this point that we will have a major dissent on the next issue. I think I already know the position of some of my colleagues, particularly those to the left, on some of the very major questions, and some other people on the committee have not really quite made up their minds yet. because all of the various options are attractive from a number of different points of view.
I say with some regret that I do not see a unanimous report coming out of that committee. Probably to some extent that will diminish the efficacy or the power of that report, because we must remember that people are looking to Ontario for leadership. They were looking to Wells Bentley for leadership, and he has provided that on a national basis. There are many other jurisdictions wrestling with these questions.
The Haley commission. upon which we based our report, was a first-rate piece of work. I disagree with some of the conclusions, but let me say that in terms of analysis, the work done and, by and large. the studies undertaken, it was a creative, interesting and profound piece of new work. I think Donna Haley and her commissioners have to be complimented on the way they came to grips with this issue.
8:30 p.m.
Our job was to criticize that and put it into a politically workable form, vetted by all three parties on a nonpartisan basis so that we could make it go. Ontario has been the leader and I am proud to say that. I think a lot of people are looking at the select committee report to see what the politicians were going to do with a report of this kind and what we feel is a politically workable, as well as a socially and economically responsible response to some of these major problems we all face.
One of the things that was impressed upon all of us, and I think I can say this without reservation, was the need for uniformity across this province. I know some people do not believe we will ever have uniformity, that this country of ours is too wide, diverse, varied and with too many different and special needs, so that we will never have uniform legislation.
I have not given up that hope. I very much hope that ultimately we will be able to get a completely portable system right across this country so that, if one moves a private pension plan around this country, one will never have the problems that are potentially inherent in the system now. As we already know, there are a number of jurisdictions that do not have any pension legislation whatsoever.
I hope we can be constructive in the national discussion and debate on these issues. I hope the Ontario select committee is looked at from that point of view because it was probably one place where there was absolute agreement, without reservation, that we should be putting a great deal of emphasis. I think no one will dispute my point of view.
Let me talk about some of the recommendations. I want to talk about the ones we did not deal with first and then I will talk about the ones we have dealt with. Let us say at the beginning that we dealt with the easy ones. There are some variations on this, but essentially we dealt with changes in the pension benefits legislation in Ontario. We worked hard as members of the committee, at this point at least, to develop some degree of unanimity. I guess that always comes around the easiest issues where we believe there should be changes in the legislation.
We dealt essentially with the private pension industry. We have no recommendations with respect to the big, gut issues like coverage. We do not know at this point the extent of the coverage issue. A lot of people argue only 40 per cent of the work force is covered by private pension plans. There are other people who argue 80 per cent are covered because one must take a much broader definition of a pension or an income replacement scheme. Some people would argue their house, small business or farm is. There are registered retirement savings plans or a variety of other devices that people with their own ingenuity develop with their own resources.
They would argue, "Does the state have a role in forcing people to save in a compulsory plan when, in contemporary terms, they have different needs and priorities for their own spending?" Today, in particular, when we know the incredible economic problems faced by a large number of people in this country and in this province, would we have the right to go to any man or woman working in this province and say: "You must give me another two, three or five per cent of your income. I am going to make you put it in a pot and I am going to save it for you for another 40 years and you will get it then and not before."
Meanwhile, he does not have enough bread on the table to feed his family. Those are the kinds of important decisions we are going to have to make with respect to the coverage issue in the near future. I heard a little chirping from my friends in the New Democratic Party. It is my friend the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan).
Mr. McClellan: We were just trying to figure out if we are going to vote tonight.
Mr. Peterson: I know his position. I might as well give his speech right now and I will save the members the pain of listening to him.
Mr. McClellan: You do not know my position at all.
Mr. Peterson: I knew his position two minutes after he walked into the committee. It did not change, did not mature and did not improve over the whole length of those committee hearings
Mr. McClellan: How would you know? You were never there.
Mr. Peterson: I was being unfair. I have a great deal of respect for the member for Bellwoods. I enjoyed sitting on the committee with him and I learned a lot from him in the course of those three months or whatever it was. It is just that he is wrong on most of the issues. That is the only problem.
I want to talk briefly about the Canada pension plan. It is no surprise that our Socialist friends will talk about a doubling of the CPP. I am sure we will hear that tonight, because I heard it almost every damned day we sat in the committee, just as my friend heard from me about the great rape of the pension plans. He got sick of me and I got sick of him, but that does not really matter all that much.
I have some very serious concerns about the funding of the Canada pension plan and the disposition of those funds over the last decade and a half or so since the inception of the plan. There has been a great deal of equivocation on this whole issue. It is public knowledge that up the provinces have borrowed some $16 billion -- is my figure correct? -- from the Canada pension plan, and it appears at this point that it is not going to be paid back.
I have already advanced what I call the availability-fed demand thesis, that the governments -- the chief offender, of course, was the government of Ontario -- saw this great pot of money available to them, and they spent up to that. The net cash requirements almost totalled the internally generated pension plans they had at their disposal to spend in any given year. There is an uncanny resemblance between the amount available and the amount spent. That was not just in the CPP; it was also in the teachers' superannuation fund, the public service fund and a variety of other internal funds.
In any event, for the past decade and a half we have financed the deficit, which is principally a phenomenon of the Premier's (Mr. Davis) regime, and now we are in a position where, at current contribution rates, those funds are in serious financial difficulty.
There are three crossover points, as I am sure members are aware. In 1986, the Canada pension plan will have to start drawing down interest. For the first time it will not be generating enough money; the disbursements will start to exceed the receipts, and they will have to start drawing back the interest that so far has been lent back to the provinces over the past few years. By 1991, they will have to start drawing down the capital, and the question is whether that capital and/or the interest is going to be repaid by the provinces to pay the retirees of that era. By 2003, or a rough approximation thereof, at current contribution rates the fund will have no more money in it.
Some people say that to use the word "bankrupt" is a trifle dramatic. But it seems to me that if a fund has no money in it, then it is bankrupt. Either it will have to increase contribution rates or it will have to lean on the consolidated revenue fund -- the general taxpayer -- to make up that money. The demographic changes that are taking place in this country, which are producing a rapidly ageing population in which more people are going to be retired and fewer people are going to be working -- fewer paying for more, as they say -- are the ingredients of a major social problem and/or a major intergenerational transfer of wealth.
The problem with not paying that money back is that we are going to have to move to higher contribution rates at an earlier date. Therefore, the contributor of the late 1980s or the 1990s will be paying for the pensions of those people before they would have had to do it. It is what is known as an intergenerational transfer.
My personal philosophy, and there are some exceptions to it, is that each generation by and large has a responsibility to look after itself. If I want financial security in my old age, it is my responsibility as a producer, my responsibility as someone earning an income, to tailor my consumption so that I can save some for the future. I recognize that this is a privilege not everyone enjoys, because there are a lot of people who cannot save anything and never will be able to save anything. We have a responsibility to make sure those people are always looked after in society in various ways.
One of the confusions that develops in this debate is that we are all terribly concerned about the status of the retired poor today in this country. The report on the status of women last week was a searing indictment of the income support programs in this country. Some 400,000 elderly women in this country, as I recall, are living below the poverty line. Let us make no mistake about: It is primarily the women who have been poorly served by the pension system, and those are the results today. I can tell members very frankly that even if we could change the legislation today, we could not solve that problem.
8:40 p.m.
Because the pension system takes so long to mature, many of those people are not on Canada pension plan anyway. Doubling the Canada pension plan does not solve in toto the coverage problem, because we still have a lot of people who were not in the work force and never qualified -- they never worked and never made contributions -- and who would not collect any pension regardless of whether it was 100 per cent of the average industrial wage, 50 per cent, or the 25 per cent it is now.
We must target our income support systems to make sure we are looking, with the finite dollars we have at a governmental level, at helping those people who need the help.
That brings us to the first and second recommendations, and I am disappointed in my three colleagues who are dissenting from those two recommendations. The three chaps who dissented are, in order of priority, the vice-chairman of the committee, the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams); the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones), the parliamentary assistant to the Treasurer and Minister of Economics; and my good friend the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt). I am disappointed in them. They destroyed some of the efficacy.
There is a very strong statement at the beginning of this report, saying, "We have a critical, immediate and severe problem in this country with the retired poor." We all agreed on that. The statistical evidence was overwhelming, and members will agree with that. We heard from group after group after group that we have a problem. So we said we must move and follow Haley's line exactly, saying: "We must move immediately to rectify that problem and get single retired pensioners in particular up beyond the $494 a month maximum they get right now." They just cannot live on it. It is that simple.
We said, "We must move immediately." Then it became a technical problem. Is that guaranteed income supplement or Gains, the guaranteed annual income system, or do we fool around and get interprovincial or federal-provincial discussions of this issue? We said, "It is too critical to wait for the federal government." If the federal government comes along in due course, and we expect it will, then the Gains part will be cut back anyway. Let us impress on the government at both levels, particularly the Ontario government, where we all participate and throw in our three cents' worth from day to day: "We have an immediate problem. We must move today. Do not fool around with the dickering over whose responsibility it is. Let's do it. Let's do it today."
There are a lot of things in this report that could be done today that we do not need a lot of discussion on. That is where the Ontario government could show its good faith and compassion and sensitivity. Beyond that, very frankly, the pensioners just cannot live on it. If the mothers of members were living on $494 a month, the members would be taking money out of their incomes to help them. I would, and so would anybody else in this room. They just cannot live on it, and we have 400,000 of them in this country.
I am very disappointed in my three colleagues on this, because we should have used every bit of influence we have. I am particularly disappointed in the parliamentary assistant, who presumably should have some influence with the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller), in saying we should move now. Similarly, Ontario could move today on the child-rearing dropout provision.
We are one of the two holdouts in this country who have the veto over Canada pension plan amendments. Why are they being so parsimonious and niggardly in that area and holding up progressive pension legislation for the people in other provinces in this country? I will be damned if I can figure out why the province is being so cheap about the whole thing. I have yet to get a decent response from the government. It is not intelligent. It is not difficult. We do not need a lot of studies to figure out. Let us just do it in recognition that we need pension reform.
Mr. Jones: All we need is for MacEachen to honour his commitment at the last pension conference and away we go.
Mr. Peterson: That is guff, blaming the feds. In this case, it is Ontario that is holding up the whole train. If Ontario is going to show any leadership, it can at least move on those two things, where it has complete jurisdiction. It can move immediately and say, "Let us at least show faith in these areas." I am disappointed about that. In those two areas, where we must recognize again, I assert to members again, the biggest problem in the whole pension area is single women and spouses. That is where we should move.
We should move with those income programs. We should move with them now. It is yet to be determined whether they can ever be covered under the Canada pension plan or any other type of program that we may or may not invent. We may always need some income support programs like old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and the guaranteed annual income system to handle those kinds of situations for people who will never qualify under the Canada pension plan unless we go into a universal system.
Let us recognize as humane people, all of us, that we have that obligation, and let us not nitpick over who should do it first. I am disappointed, I really am disappointed.
Let me talk about a couple of other things.
Mr. Williams: You just forgot the cost factor, David. That is all.
Mr. Peterson: Oh, come on. Does my friend want to talk about Suncor, the interest on Suncor? For a fraction of it, we could have solved this immediate social problem.
I want to talk about the pension benefits legislation. That is a complicated act, Mr. Speaker, as you very well know. As we crawl through it, I am very happy we got some basic agreement, particularly on vesting. I guess it seemed fairly generous at the time the legislation was created. I do not know when that was; do members remember the date when the original Pension Benefits Act established 45 and 10 years as the point at which one could receive vested benefits.
So many workers who moved from job to job lost the employer's contribution; it was really a tragedy. The world has changed very dramatically. Now, the mobility of labour is a well-established fact and a sociological phenomenon. We must move to meet that.
I must say very frankly, in personal terms, the view that pensions are deferred wages is an issue of some controversy. Some people believe they are deferred wages; some people do not quite believe they are deferred wages. There are different points of view on that. I tend to believe that they are; at least that is the philosophical base from which one should start the discussion.
One would go to immediate vesting. I do not know why pension plans are not immediately vested, except for the cost factor and that it would be such a rude shock to the system; it would be too much to swallow in one year. We agreed on a compromise, as was done in other jurisdictions. This was moved to vesting after five years' service -- it seemed to be a reasonable way to start the whole discussion -- which will entitle a pensioner or person to the employer's contribution plus a certain fixed return upon termination of his employment. It is in the recommendations.
I think that is fair and reasonable in the circumstances. Of course, as members will notice in recommendation five, we have asked the Pension Commission of Ontario to review the results of this change in three years with a view towards moving to an earlier system. I guess we got half a loaf; it was constructive, a reasonable compromise. But I would hope, ultimately, we would move to a much earlier vesting period because, on the view of deferred wages, it follows that it should be immediately vested.
Of course, we will look forward to that progress, and I wish Wells Bentley were here to supervise that. A number of technical suggestions are in there, such as what the employer's contribution should be, in recommendations seven, eight and nine, and in recommendation 10 there are certain options that are available, should a person so desire.
We talked about survivorship and the right of survivors in the pension area. Of course, it is another area where there have been very serious problems in this country. We know so many people getting a reasonable pension where the chap died and his wife was left in penury, particularly if she was not working or did not have any other support systems.
We think the joint and last survivor level should be in the 60 per cent level at least, unless there is a signup, and made mandatory. I support that and I think recognizing the reality that wives tend to live longer, and with so many of them in absolute poverty today, is very important.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, and all of us recognize it, this is a terribly complex subject. I am happy with the amount of discussion the whole pension issue is getting in the press. I venture to say, if you walk down the street, probably two in 100 people would not really know what vesting is or a lot of the other words that we use in these discussions.
8:50 p.m.
But we must start. Fortunately, six or nine months ago the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Drea) brought in Bill 14, I believe, on disclosure, a number of regulations on disclosure. I was very happy about that, because I was one of the people in the House who was pushing for disclosure as at least the minimum first step towards a public discussion of these issues.
I want to attempt to simplify this very complex subject by at least having it made obligatory that every person who is entitled to a pension should get some sort of standard form every year which tells him how much he has contributed, how much his employer has contributed, the rate of return his pension fund is earning, how much his expected pension will be if he works at that firm until age 65, how much his pension will be if he leaves before age 65, the performance of the fund, the actuarial assumptions and a variety of other things in plain, simple language so that everyone can get involved in this debate.
The great tragedy is that young people do not care about pensions. Almost all of us agree on that. The average young person who is working is more concerned about making the down payment on his car or his house, feeding his family or developing a stake in society in one way or another. It is only when one reaches 40, 45 or 50, or when one is confronted with one's own mortality, that one says: "Good God! How am I going to feed myself when I am 65 years old or however old I will be when I retire?" Then there seems to be a new sensitivity to these issues, and a number of people say at that point, "Gee, I wish I had started salting money away a little earlier."
We as legislators always have to decide at which point we force people to contribute to their own security. There are a number of division points. Some people think we should give them a free ride until they are 30; 35 is another matter. When they are 35, because they are getting older, they will start caring more about income security or income replacement; then we can start charging them, or we can charge them a differential, a lesser rate at a young age and a higher rate at an older age.
In any event, people get serious about these matters only when they get older, and a great number of people look at that with great regret and say, "My God! Why did I not think about this question 10 or 20 years earlier?"
That is why, as I see it, we all have a major responsibility. I want to see very tough disclosure; I think it is the employer's responsibility. I want to see a standard form. I would like to see it right across this country so that when people get their pension slips from their employers they will understand what they mean and what they have, just as they understand when they get their T-4 forms. It is one of those pieces of paper people will file in the special case where they put their important papers, and they will know what they are entitled to and what their wives or survivors will be entitled to.
I hope something will develop in that area. We have been pretty progressive in that area. The standard forms are not quite developed, as I understand it, and we are working on it.
How long have I spoken?
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Cousens): The honourable member has already used 33 minutes.
Mr. Peterson: I have used 33 minutes? Sorry. I am just going to wind up, because I do not want to cut into my colleagues' time.
I am very happy about recommendation 15, about allowing at least one of the employees or pensioners to be a member of the body directing the affairs of the pension. I think that is progressive; I think it is fair. Good God! It is their money. I am surprised we did not go for an even higher percentage.
Because of the nature of some of these boards, I would argue in a lot of cases that the money should be given over to the pensioners and they should be allowed to administer it. It is their money, and there is a finite amount of money. We are not going to make up any shortfalls. If they want to run it, that is their problem if they can get a higher rate of return.
However, at least this seemed like one reasonable compromise to ensure legislatively that at least one member of the employees' group is going to be a member of the committee directing the affairs of that pension group. That is fair; it is democratic. It is, frankly, very late getting established; it should have been done a long time ago.
Of course, that is one of the things that has evolved with the change of philosophy about pensions. It used to be a function of the employer's beneficence. If you had a really nice employer, he might or might not give you a pension and he might or might not charge you for it. Today, of course, it is a deserved, earned, recognized and often bargained-for right, and we have to look upon it in those terms.
For all intents and purposes, they almost should have a property right in that fund that is theirs, and they should have influence over how that is disposed.
I have one last thing to say and then I will sit down, because there is a lot more I could say about the things that were not in the report. I will save that for my speech next spring when the second committee comes back.
I am very happy that we wrestled with the problem of augmentation, indexation or whatever else one wants to call it. Frankly, I am one of those people who is not very happy with indexation. It tends to be a cop-out for governments in so many ways. Rather than dealing with the availability of resources at any given time, they just automatically index and get us off the government's back so they does not have to deal with it.
What we have often seen, particularly with high interest rates when funds were earning a disproportionately great amount of money or high return, is that they were using that money to cut back on their own contributions to the pension funds. It was a windfall benefit for the employers in a number of cases. We have come to grips with that and said, "Okay, we are not going to go for automatic indexation to the rate of inflation or any other factor or index."
We believe the funds have a responsibility, at least in some measure, to keep up with inflation, and hence we arrived upon a generally accepted principle called the excess interest principle. It is now used in a number of funds and tends to work. It does not bind the funds to the function of performance, but at least it keeps the employer from using windfall profits in the fund to reduce his contribution to that fund. I think it is a fair, sensible way of dealing with it. It does not strap employers, but at the same time it guarantees -- or it is hoped it guarantees, depending on the performance of the fund -- some degree of inflation protection.
I know people in my own riding who retired from Canadian National Railways in 1967 or 1968; they had a pretty healthy pension then of $280. I forget the exact figure, but it seemed pretty good in 1968. Today, they are still receiving almost the same amount of money; they just cannot live on it. We must recognize those realities. We are into high inflation, but high inflation also brings higher returns for pension funds; therefore, that has to be shared equally across the board with all the participants in that fund.
I am glad we wrestled with that. I am happy with our recommendation and it is to be hoped that will come forward in the next little while.
I keep saying I have only one other thing to say, but one other thing we did not deal with here was the portability question. I will have a chance to argue this later, but I am one of those people who believes that if we legislate portability tomorrow, we would have portability tomorrow. I do not think it is nearly as complicated as a lot of people say it is.
As long as we value the contribution in, the same way as we value them out, we could legislatively force portability between almost any types of plan. Failing that, at least we could allow people to take it out and put it into a locked registered retirement savings plan vehicle. We would have something to make sure that people are not losing as job mobility becomes increasingly a common phenomenon in the labour market today.
I have used up my time. I wish I could talk some more on some of the great public issues. Again, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, how much I enjoyed the committee and how much I enjoyed this issue. I think it is an important one, and I think it is important for us. I think it is important for tomorrow; and it will be important 10, 20 and 30 years from now. I feel privileged to have been able to have participated in this committee with the very fine people who were working with it.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Speaker, I will try to allow more than 10 minutes for my colleagues or I will get shot, I am sure, standing in this House. I understand that each party has only 50 minutes to speak on it.
I too felt very happy with the kind of counsel we had: Wells Bentley, for the work he did with us; Richard Jennings, the committee research officer, whose work was first-rate and who did an absolutely excellent job in summarizing and getting to the meat of the various arguments that had been made with us and pulling the material together; and Graham White, the clerk of the committee through the sessions we had. Some of the subsequent events may have been a little rough for Mr. White, but I think we were well served by Mr. Bentley, Mr. Jennings and Mr. White.
9 p.m.
As reactionary as I found him at times, I appreciated the chairman of the committee, the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor). I think he tried to play a fair role in chairing the committee. I wish some of his colleagues had been as open-minded as he was.
I was interested in the comment of the Liberal critic that he knew exactly where the New Democrats on the committee stood and that our position never changed. Of course, he attributed it to inflexibility. It is important to recognize the real story on that. There was a philosophy and a position in terms of pensions for people that for many years we wanted and had fought for. We knew where we were going and what we wanted. It was not difficult to lay on our arguments when we had that kind of philosophical base.
I think the problem my friend in the Liberal Party had was that he knew we had to improve pensions, but how in blazes could he deal with ordinary people and the need for better pension plans while still keeping friendly with his friends in the insurance business and the pension industry? That was the real problem he faced: how he could skate. I do not think that was a position we were ever faced with in our caucus and in our participation on this committee.
We were faced first with the obvious position that the pensions in this country were inadequate. There are some particularly serious areas of concern. Canada's pension system at the moment simply does not pass the tests of adequacy and equity. More than half of all Canadians over the age of 65 are compelled to apply for benefits under the welfare-tainted guaranteed income supplement program. That is a sad commentary on this country of ours.
The inadequacy shows as well in a figure we could not get. The last time I talked to Mr. Bentley, he said it was probably closer to 20 per cent than the 10 to 15 per cent I had quoted from a Canadian Congress of Labour study of a good many years ago when it first got into a campaign for universal pension plans. That study showed that 10 to 15 per cent of Canadian workers actually got the value out of any pension plans they were in.
That comes about because we usually have a combination of 10 years of service and 45 years of age, a 55 combination. The average Canadian worker may move as many as five, six or seven times; so he never qualifies to get the full benefits of his pension. He would get his own money back, sometimes with interest, but he never picked up the money from the company on that plan.
The figure is still not clear, but it is somewhere in the 10 to 20 per cent range. That is all one ever really gets out of one's pension fund. This gives us a lot of problems. It did when some of us were serving on the select committee on plant shutdowns and employee adjustment. We found the inadequacy of the pensions left for workers who found themselves out of work.
We also knew we had a particularly serious area of deficiency in terms of single older women. This is where I have some very strong feelings about at least three of my colleagues from the Conservative Party who were on that committee and the position they took.
The evidence was not disputed by anybody. The people who are probably the worst off in our community and who need help most are elderly single women who are living on totally inadequate incomes. That was not just the position of our party. We got it in testimony even from the representatives of the banks, the insurance companies, the trust companies and the pension industry. Even those from the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Toronto, who were probably the most right-wing representatives before us, admitted there was a serious problem in terms of income for this group of people.
The problems were laid out for us quite well. It was apparent early in the committee's discussions that we were not going to resolve, at least in the first stage of the committee's hearings, the fundamental problem of where we should go in terms of universality and portability, a pension that would cover Canadians right across the country and be truly portable, which would ensure that one gets one's pension out when one is ready to retire. That is the fundamental question that is going to split the members of the committee when it meets again early next year. At least I would be very surprised if it does not.
It became obvious that what we were looking at in the initial stages of the committee hearings was what could be done to help people that would, in effect, reform the private pension industry. We felt a lot more strongly than some in the other two parties. We were concerned because of the inadequacies of pensions in this country, the number of people who have to seek supplementary assistance, the plight of elderly women, and the fact that such a small percentage of money put into pensions actually produces a pension one is entitled to when ready to retire. It pointed out to us, at least, the private pension industry had not done the job.
One of the interesting things in the course of the arguments and the presentations we had was the admission that the private industry had not responded to what were obvious problems in terms of pensions in this country. We always got the "but" -- and we got it even from our good friend and adviser, Wells Bentley. But we felt if ever there was a time to do something about the private industry it was now, because they knew they had let us down, they were in some trouble and they had not responded adequately and in time to the problems that existed. Now was the time to make some corrections.
We had at least a little bit to go on because a private member's resolution I moved myself almost two years ago was passed in this House. I am not quite sure how it happened and there has been some discussion on it since, but it was early in the stage of private members' bills and debate in this House. That private resolution of mine called for vesting after five years as an improvement in terms of the private plans, for some kind of a central investment agency, and, in terms of companies that go belly up, for some kind of protection for workers' pension plans where they were not adequately funded.
That resolution went through the House, but that is as far as it goes under the system we have when it comes from a private member and from an opposition member in particular. But, as well, that resolution was passed by all three parties in the previous House. When we got into the committee we found there was some area we could agree on, regardless of the more basic differences we had in terms of the major reforms needed in the pension industry in this country.
One pleasant surprise was that all the members agreed. The strange thing is, I guess, the agreement was helped along by the fact this was one of the areas in which the insurance and pension industries knew they were in some trouble. They all agreed they could go for earlier vesting. By the end of our discussions in committee I was disappointed my resolution of a year or two earlier had said five-year vesting. Had it been a little tougher in the first recommendation I think we might have got it. But we did get a recommendation for vesting after five years, which gives some additional protection to workers who may move to a number of different jobs in the course of their work lives.
Wells Bentley, and I have to give him credit for it, suggested we recommend that the Pension Commission in Ontario review the vesting period after three years with a view, and we were very specific on this, to reducing the vesting period at the time of vesting. I think we have already set the stage for five-year vesting now, and I hope, in three years' time, one-year vesting. That was a fairly major reform in terms of the private pension industry.
The other point we finally nailed down was the fact that there has been some argument, and it has been one of the things that held up earlier vesting for pension plans, over whether pensions were, in effect, moneys that were set aside for pensions for workers, that is, deferred wages. We found also there had been a fair bit of movement in the private institutions that appeared before our committee. If I am not mistaken, the only delegation that flatly said it still had very grave reservations about this principle was the board of trade delegation. There were some real surprises in those groups that said, "Yes, you cannot really argue against it."
That just backed up the argument for earlier vesting. What it really said was that we were probably not very bright in going for the five years. We should have insisted right from day one on one-year vesting, but there was some question as to what costs might be involved in phasing this in.
9:10 p.m.
One of the points in that first report of the committee is not listed as one of the recommendations. It is on page 10 in the select committee on pensions report, but to me it is probably one of the very fundamental positions -- that is, that pensions were once thought of as a reward for long and faithful service. However, the current concept of viewing pensions as deferred wages has gained wide acceptance. The adoption of this concept implies many changes in areas such as vesting provisions and employee rights on termination of employment.
I think we nailed that down because it was discussed specifically. I am only now noticing it was not made as a specific recommendation, although probably it might not fit that category. I think that was an important move as well. We played around with discussions on what the private pension industry and some of the major insurance companies were doing in terms of portability for the plans they had for their workers.
There is probably some area to move, although our recommendations really are nonexistent in the area of portability in the private plans. We did establish the principle that it is the workers' wages that we are dealing with, and therefore he should have the right to it from day one. We did establish the principle that there has to be more worker participation in the private plans they are involved in, and they should have representation on those plans.
We did deal with the vesting problem. A number of the other 18 recommendations are more minor, but certainly probably timely recommendations. We left alone, as I said at the beginning, the basic issue of how do we really get a portable universal pension plan that is adequate for Canadian workers. That is obviously one of the major areas we are going to face in the session that will start shortly.
The other area that upset me no end was the fact that we recognized the total inadequacy of the pensions for single women. The only serious division, although we had a number of good discussions and even the odd slight argument on the committee, was what to do regarding the total inadequacy of income for older single women who are in desperate straits. If members have a constituency office that is doing any work for people at all they doggone well know that is the case in this province.
We did argue. It is not a fact that we did not look at some of the alternatives, as is suggested, if I am reading correctly, by the dissent from three of the Tory members. We did discuss whether or not we should go after the federal authorities, or whether it was a joint venture and how to achieve the kind of funding that was needed to provide the additional income.
The one thing that was very clear was that there was a desperate need there, and it was attested to by every single group that came before us. The basic argument finally came down to: How can we assure something is done now? There was only one way, and that was by increasing the assistance under the guaranteed annual income system for this category of people.
I think what went on should be put in some context, because I really have some strong feelings about what happened in the last few days of that committee. After two sometimes tough days in camera, the committee clearly reached a consensus. The most controversial point was calling on this government to raise the Gains for older single women without waiting for federal agreement. The motion to do this was moved by one of the Tory members, the member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies), and I give him full credit for it. It was supported after some debate by a majority in that committee.
After the new draft came out, when our people had finished with it in the second in-camera session, it was worded slightly differently. I will not go into the details. It was not that major, but at the urging of my colleague the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) the original wording was substituted, and that is where we had some argument. He was supported in his argument that what was down on the draft was not what we had agreed to by the member for Brantford, I believe by the chairman who vacated the chair just a few minutes ago, by other Tory members, as well as by the Liberal and the NDP members on that that committee.
Arguments were made and opposition was expressed by the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones) and the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt). The member for Oriole (Mr. Williams) was not there for the vote, although he had expressed opposition earlier. He came back in the final hour or so and was told what happened. We went ahead in committee and finalized the final draft of the report, including that recommendation. Finis -- including that recommendation. Some subsequent problems there may have been. I am willing to accept partial responsibility for it if that is what really caused it.
We had also urged an early tabling of the report in the House. When it came into the House we noted that it had not been signed and that we had not seen it in printed form, although we had agreed and finalized the final draft in the committee. As a result it was sent back out to get our signatures to make sure we all saw the final draft. Suddenly we got the word. The member for Oriole is leading the attack against these elderly single women who are in desperate straits, strongly supported by the member for Mississauga North.
I have not heard much from the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt) but obviously he was with them. And even though we finalized it, and it had been presented in the House -- maybe it was our stupidity in asking that it be signed and letting it go back out again -- we left an opening so that they could renege on what went through that committee. That is hypocritical and dishonest.
We ended up with a recommendation by these three members, that is now in this report, that says they disagreed with the immediate assistance that is so desperately needed for older single women. They give us all the arguments about costs. I am hoping the other Tory members in the committee will stand up because they have not joined in that dissent. There are only three of them that I know of. They have clearly said it is because there may be some costs involved, or "we want to wait until we negotiate with the federal authorities" -- which could take forever -- "we are not going to deal immediately with the desperate problem of older single women." That is despicable as well as dishonest.
Nothing angered me more in this House than when that happened. That point should be very clear in spite of the defence the member for Oriole tried to make. What I have explained is exactly the sequence of what happened and how that came about. It was well after the fact that we got that dissent.
Mr. Williams: Mr. Speaker, on a point of privilege: If we are talking about political dishonesty, the comments made by the member who has just spoken amply demonstrates that. I indicated it was inappropriate to create false expectations by implementing that recommendation because of there having been no financial assessment of its consequences. The member says that somehow suggests I am against further support to single widowed people. That is totally false, erroneous and misleading, and politically --
The Deputy Speaker: Fine. I think you have had the opportunity to voice your concern on the matter. It is my understanding you have spoken previously on it. No doubt you have made the record well known on your point.
Mr. Williams: What the member said about my motivation in the matter is totally false --
The Deputy Speaker: You have made the point. You are out of order.
Mr. Mackenzie: I want to wind up my remarks now. I do not think that was a point of order.
Mr. Williams: No, it was a point of privilege.
Mr. Mackenzie: I do not even think it was a point of privilege.
There is no question they could argue that more of an assessment could be done. The fact is they did not argue that when we approved it, and finalized it to come into this House. When do they go back on something? That is an entirely different issue than the absolute need that was clearly pointed out and which we tried to redress in the recommendation made in that committee.
The final point is simply that we have an exceedingly difficult task ahead of us. We need universality. We need portability. We need a pension level that is adequate for older people as they leave their employment to be able to pay their taxes, buy the food, keep their houses, and live with some small measure of dignity.
I do not think even the Tories in the committee think the PURS concept is going to do it. But that may be what the argument centres on in the final session. However, we have to understand clearly, and I hope the people are watching and understand in the final session of this committee, what kinds of recommendations we bring in so that do have the capability of redressing and correcting an inadequate pension arrangement in this country of ours and in this province of ours.
9:20 p.m.
That is a pretty serious challenge. Yet I do know the direction I want to go. I will listen to a better one, but I have not heard it in anything we have seen before the committee so far.
Mr. Breaugh: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order: I would like to draw to your attention that I am not sure I can count 20 members in the House. I would like to draw that matter to your attention, according to the standing orders.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Oshawa draws the chair's attention to the lack of members in the House to form a quorum.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Speaker, the numbers may not be great but I notice the intensity --
The Deputy Speaker: I will have to bring to the attention of the member for Mississauga North that I have just been informed there is no quorum.
Mr. Roy: There are only five NDP members in the House. Put that on the record.
The Deputy Speaker called for the quorum bells.
On resumption:
Mr. Jones: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I suppose I could commence my comments with the response to some of the comments of the last speaker, the honourable member for Hamilton East, when he uses such rhetoric as to suggest the honourable member for Oriole is somehow part of an attack on senior citizens. What utter nonsense.
Mr. Mackenzie: It is exactly what you did.
Mr. Jones: That is the continued diatribe we hear about how the NDP is the only party with a social conscience and all that.
Mr. Mackenzie: You are the ones who voted against it.
Mr Jones: Rather I would prefer to share some thoughts that occur to me, as others have done who were part of the committee. I will leave a couple of moments for the dissent and my reasons for my involvement in it. First I would rather share a few moments of thought in this debate about this issue of pension reform about how we of the select committee joined with people who came to assist us in what I consider to be a rather expensive learning process.
As others commented, I cannot help but agree we were all grateful for Mr. Bentley's assistance -- we learned so very much from him -- and for the work of Richard Jennings and of course, Mr. White, as well as the many others who gave so freely of their time. It was a very free-giving, nonpartisan section of this proceeding of the committee that far outweighed the part my negative friend, the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie), preferred to dwell on.
I, like other speakers, found the subject vastly fascinating. Working on that committee one cannot help feeling compelled to sense one's responsibility. As we go on forward and further learning other aspects of this extensive social, economic and, as it has been referred to, philosophical subject, I suppose we find ourselves looking within. We found ourselves --
Mr. McClellan: What is your philosophy of poverty?
Mr. Jones: If the member for Bellwoods could just be quiet for a moment, we will answer that. We have no dissent with recommendation 1.
The Deputy Speaker: If the member spoke to the chair it would probably help a little bit.
Mr. Jones: Fine, Mr. Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: I am listening.
Mr. Jones: All members of the select committee from the government side found we shared the concerns as in the status of women report of a few days ago. As we did, we heard evidence from the other issues.
Mr. McClellan: Oh yes, sure, That's why you filed a dissent: acting as water boy for the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller).
Mr. Jones: Someone over here wants to talk about our Treasurer not making it a major priority, as he alluded to that dissent. That is absolutely not true. The Treasurer is involved in more than one level. I was a member of this select committee in my own right. Though I am wearing my other hat, I am somewhat familiar with the work the Treasurer has been putting into, and the priority he is giving to, pension reform in this province -- and also in the inter-provincial workings that we all agreed had to take place. I recognize, of course, it is a large federal and provincial issue.
When the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) talks about this government fooling around, I am sure he is being a little bit facetious. To take the report as we dealt with it, and to treat the different sections and the recommendations that we worked on and learned about as we went forward in the process that led to this interim report, I think we all look forward to the next go-round. Then we will be dealing with such matters as the provincial universal retirement system, which we know is very much a controversial issue, philosophically and economically, but one that everybody approaches with open minds. It is very much an area for major reform. I know our friends here with their pinched-in thinking are going to say we come to it with some predetermined thoughts but that just is not the case.
9:30 p.m.
As I look through the report this evening, I see the concept of deferred wages, for example, has been touched upon. That philosophy of deferred wages is certainly coming to be regarded as a legislative fact of life. I believe Wells Bentley shared with us the idea that if that became the case in this jurisdiction, we would probably be the first in North America -- I think he even alluded to the western world -- to see that come about in legislation.
Mr. McClellan: Don't be so silly. You're so partisan, so out of touch.
Mr. Jones: Those were the man's exact words. Why does the member not wait for his comments. He will probably give us more of the same diatribe his colleague did here a moment ago. In regard to the old dogma that this side of the House, this government, does not really care, there is evidence to the contrary all across the province in all the social programs of this government.
As we looked at vesting and rights on termination we found ourselves talking about the five-year recommendation and seeing it coming forward. We on this side of the House certainly do agree with that. I believe we are right to call also for review in the near future to see if that cannot go forward and come about even sooner. It is true, as members have said, there was a cost factor considered in that. Nevertheless, if we are accepting the philosophy that pensions are deferred wages, it flows naturally from that idea that early vesting is the proper route for us to be going as we look into even further reform in the near future.
As to survivor benefits for low-income, elderly single persons, there is total agreement about that. I know as this report goes on forward in the workings of this government that is a very high priority. With plan termination and funding requirements I do not think we have anything but total agreement with the members of the committee. The member for London Centre did a good job outlining for us the reasons why in disclosure as it affects those members of pension plans there is a very important need for reform so that people can have a concise, easy to refer to, easy to understand position as to where their pension benefits are, and how they have improved in the course of that year or even a shorter period. We heard from people who had private sector plans and others some suggestions as how they were helping that process in their individual cases.
I do not think part-time employees were touched on by other speakers thus far this evening. Nevertheless, we all knew, as we looked at some rather shocking statistics, that there was need for urgent pension reform. A part of the large numbers of people who were not included in pensions were many part-time employees. So the committee rightly found that issue needed early consideration.
We comment in our interim report about the Ontario public sector plans and we are looking at recommendations in this next round, no doubt about that, in more detail.
The inflation protection section of the report which has been outlined as an assistance against inflation, and which was referred to in one of the recommendations, is something the Treasurer has mentioned. Many of the members attended the Financial Executives Institute Canada pension conference recently at the Skyline. The Treasurer indicated that in principle he was very much in support of the concept of assisting against inflation as we looked at that particular recommendation.
I think we all recognized early on that uniformity of legislation, given the increasing mobility of the work force, with so many people moving not only interprovincially but also to different career choices in their working lives, is a major, important, basic reform that has to take place. I can share with the members that this government, in parallel with the work of the select committee, is going forward in its work with the discussions that are taking place between the provinces and with the federal government.
As we looked at the specific recommendations in capsule form at the back of the report, someone mentioned how we were referring to basic principles and finding ourselves involved in great philosophical debate. I suppose that is true. Early on, we saw this government comment in its budget about the need for reform. It admitted the shortcomings were recognized, with a need for flexibility and for improvement in private sector plans.
At that early stage, in no less a document than our budget, the government recognized a need for urgent improvement for the existing low-income elderly, and that remains a commitment for early attention by this government.
All the programs, such as improved vesting, the employer contributions and portability, have run parallel with thoughts the government has expressed. It was anxious to hear about them from the select committee. Now it has them in hand and is going forward.
But I think we have to remember with some of these recommendations that the need for uniformity across all the provinces is a high priority, an urgent need; so this government is going forward in that work.
As we dealt with the many issues of this complex subject of pensions and pension reform, I think we were all reminded of costs. As a point of clarification for the members who have raised it, I say about those of us who signed the dissenting report that it was not just the cost. It was a matter of pursuing discussions that took place in the committee where it was acknowledged, not just by members on the government side but by others, that the federal government had its proper and appropriate responsibility. It had expressed its recognition of that at recent pension conferences, notably the Minister of Finance speaking as he did on the subject specifically at the pension conference.
It was in that spirit as to the workings of the existing system, those means-tested programs where we recognized the need for increases for those single elderly, that we called upon both levels of government equally to move urgently to meet that need. That is why I resent others who have said what they resent about it. I resent someone making comments about my colleague, myself or others that we were somehow attacking senior citizens. What balderdash.
9:40 p.m.
As we look into the dimensions of this subject, I think we have to learn some important lessons from other parts of the world. Those of us who attended the most recent pension conference, the financial executives' conference, heard from internationally recognized experts who described for us how Canada is at a crossroads that European societies reached some 15 years ago.
They described some of the lessons we could learn in our pension reform from their experiences so that we could do a better job, as others have suggested before me, to effect something that is going to be a responsibility, because it will affect generations to come and it can have such a tremendous impact on our economy, on the social services that flow from it and on the dignity we want for our elderly at a time when demographers are telling us clearly of our ageing population.
As we learn about some of the concerns that come from countries such as the Netherlands, where we hear of the bankruptcy of the whole country, short of their discovering oil, we must be concerned and we must pause and be responsible for the costs of what we are proposing in this reform.
As we enter this next session, we will undoubtedly be entering the philosophical debate about the expansion of the Canada pension plan. Some of us are rather concerned to hear the Minister of National Health and Welfare make some of the comments she has made about expanding the CPP and putting aside the great choice that exists now in the private sector system where people identify their needs through the collective bargaining process and all the many ways that have come about. The simplistic approach of expanding the CPP seems to be the only one to be considered in her mind. That has to cause us considerable concern.
I suggest that we should be looking at France and some other countries in Europe, where that has not been their experience, for some important lessons that have been learned.
As for my colleague and good friend the member for Bellwoods, his favourite thing is to go on about how we on the government side are merely carrying forward some pre-ordained plan for pension reform.
Mr. McClellan: No, I am talking about you.
Mr. Jones: Okay. The member talks about me; it's the same thing. The member is convinced that everybody gets marching orders in the morning. What utter nonsense!
Mr. McClellan: No. Just you.
Mr. Jones: The Treasurer visited the select committee, and he told them his thoughts and from whence he drew them. He admitted they were his biases, but I think the member recognized them as wholesome and honest. The member admitted his biases from the day he walked into the committee.
Interjection.
Mr. Jones: Oh, of course.
As we look into this next session, we hope that we will see these admittedly thorny issues dealt with in a spirit of the urgency of the reform of the leadership role Ontario plays, because that is very much the mantle this province has as other provinces look to it for reform and the leadership it shows as it discusses so many of those programs with the federal government.
Mr. McClellan: Its leadership is all to the rear, as far as you are concerned.
Mr. Mackenzie: Are you talking about the pension supplement? They won't move until the feds move. Where are you? What is your interpretation of leadership?
Mr. Jones: Don't be naive. The member knows that because of CPP it is impossible not to have uniformity across the provinces.
I was certainly pleased to be a member on this select committee. It was a learning exercise that I look forward to going on with in the months ahead, as the interim report moves on to a process of examining the many other issues of this expansive and crucially important social and economic subject that all of us will be faced with in our roles as legislators in these next few months.
As we look at that, we do so with concern for some of the nonsense that our NDP friends, such as the member for Bellwoods, has said. He pretends that somehow or other his party is without bias and we over here somehow or other propose --
Mr. McClellan: Why do you say, "I can't do anything for you. I have to wait for the feds"?
The Deputy Speaker: Order, please. The member for Mississauga North has the floor.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Speaker, I hope the nonsense we have heard about this dissenting opinion is not going to characterize the workings of the committee as it goes into the new year, because to do so is to make a mockery of the important work it has to do.
I would say that as we go forward in this work, we do so with determination that the very best blending of these recommendations and others to come in subsequent reports will play an important part in bringing about the essential reform in pensions as we look into new decades with an ageing population. We do so in good conscience, for the best interests of those currently senior in years and with needs, and as we look forward to future generations as they may share in the benefits we will be improving with this reform.
The Deputy Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.
[ Applause.]
The Deputy Speaker: I wish to bring to the members' attention that, to have an orderly distribution of time, according to our calculation you now have approximately 12 minutes.
Mr. Epp: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and all the members for that very hearty applause.
I am very pleased to be able to speak on this subject. Being a member of that committee for a number of months when we were presiding over some very important issues for this province, I felt it a privilege to be able to work with the other members of the committee, both of the New Democratic Party and of the government side of the House, and to be able to participate in trying to meld some kind of recommendations for the province so that policies could be developed in anticipation of some very important discussions taking place on the national scene which, when we were meeting in the summer months --
The Deputy Speaker: There are some very important discussions taking place right here, and I know we would all love to join them. However, in the interests of the dignity of the House and with all due respect for the member for Waterloo North, I think it is only right that we listen to his comments.
Mr. Epp: When we were meeting in the summer months, we thought the provinces and the federal government might get together in late November or December to discuss pension reform on a very preliminary basis. I do not think very much of this has occurred, and it is probably because of the constitution and other important problems nationally and provincially.
I was pleased to be able to serve on that committee for various reasons. One is that it is a very complex subject and one that all of us should know more about. As a lay person over the years and so forth, I felt I was very inadequate from the standpoint of knowing a lot about pensions. I still am in that position, but I guess I am a little strengthened with that experience over a few years.
9:50 p.m.
I was particularly grateful to be able to serve my colleague the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson). Without trying to be partisan in this nature, he is probably the person most knowledgeable and qualified to deal with this subject of any of the 125 members of this Legislature. I am not trying to be partisan, because, when I came into this House four and a half years ago, he was making important speeches on pension reform across this province at that time. It is something he saw years ago which some of us have come to acknowledge and identify only in recent years.
I am the member for Waterloo North. The House will appreciate that Waterloo has about five or six head offices of insurance companies; it is the Hartford of Canada. Months before, when the Haley commission was still having discussions about pensions, before its report was tabled in February or March -- I think it was tabled in March but was made public in February -- people in my own area were phoning and writing me to ask what was happening, giving me their views on some of the discussions, before Haley, as to things we should do once we got the report.
I was particularly gratified that we had from Kitchener-Waterloo a gentleman by the name of Donald Coxe, who is the vice-president of Mu-Cana, an arm of Mutual Life. He was a member of that commission. Having been a member of the committee that studied the Haley commission, I was able to sit down with Mr. Coxe, who gave me additional information about the discussions they had over the four long years during which the members of the Haley commission sat down and heard hundreds of briefs and so forth.
I would be remiss if I did not draw attention, as a number of other members have done, to the tremendous service Wells Bentley gave to the committee. Mr. Bentley was outstanding in his contributions. As my colleague the member for London Centre stated earlier, I regret he has reached that ripe old age when he is close to retirement and wish very much he would continue to serve our committee to the best of his ability, which all of us recognize is a tremendous ability indeed.
As well, Richard Jennings, the researcher, did a tremendous job. Graham White as the clerk was equally good and continues to do his fine work. Of course, I do not think it should go unnoticed that Jim Taylor, the clerk of the committee, did a fine job.
Mr. T. P. Reid: The chairman.
Mr. Epp: What did I say?
Mr. T. P. Reid: You said "clerk." He is not competent enough to be a clerk.
Mr. Epp: I am sorry. The member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor) was the chairman of the committee. It is the only committee I have sat on where the chairman did not take a lot of regular coffee breaks and so forth. I think he was there from beginning to end and, with few exceptions, the committee continued on without his being there. I think that was noteworthy in itself, aside from his taking a neutral position as chairman and conducting the affairs of that important committee admirably.
I want to speak about two or three principles the committee agreed on and then draw attention to a few things that still have to be decided. One is the principle of vesting, otherwise known as the right of the employee on termination of employment to part or all of his accrued pension earnings.
We know that currently in Ontario the policy is that one has to be 45 and have 10 years of service to have one's pension vested. I can tell you from experience because, after teaching for more than 16 years in the secondary system, when I came into the House I decided to take my money out of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation and use that money for other purposes, because I thought I could get better interest elsewhere than I could within the pension fund.
If the recommendations this committee has and will come out with are incorporated in national pension policy, and particularly provincial pension policy, it is going to be vesting at five years, and after three years that period will be shortened to perhaps three years, one year or whatever.
Another important principle we discussed was portability. I am pleased the committee generally felt there should be more portability across the province and the country. At the moment, we know a lot of people from Ontario who came here from other provinces are now moving westward. I think it is unfortunate and shameful that in many instances these people cannot take their pensions with them.
If this kind of policy is incorporated into legislation -- more portability -- then more pensions will be taken with them no matter which part of the country they live in and no matter which part of the country they come from. All of us, as a matter of principle, support that particular stance.
The third item I want to touch on is disclosure. I was somewhat upset to learn that many people are not given the kind of information they should be given about their pensions. For instance, they may not be given a clear indication of the contributions they have in a plan; or they are not given a copy of the employer pension fund statement for current years; or they are not given the name and address of the plan's administrator or of the financial carrier, or the specific directions for obtaining additional information. These are only some of the things that Haley recommended and only some of the things our committee endorsed wholeheartedly.
Since my time is going by very quickly, I draw members' attention to the concept of deferred wages. This was referred to earlier. I was a little astonished that we have the kind of support we have, with the exception of one group before the committee, for the principle of deferred wages. This implies that pensions are a form of deferred wages. Therefore, an employee representative should be able to serve on the committee on pensions of a particular employer, and people should have greater understanding and knowledge of what is in a plan.
To finish, I was equally astonished when we were told by the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) that we are in debt about $9 billion to the Canada pension plan, which had been borrowed over the last 15 years since its inception in 1965, and that we had no intention of paying that back. Without being overdramatic, that is theft in the clearest terms.
In that particular instance, I hope the government will change its policy and its stance. To try to wash that aside and say the money is not owed to the Canada pension plan and should not be paid back is somewhat out of line. I hope very much the government intends to pay that $9 billion back. In any other form, when one borrows money from a plan or borrows money from a bank, from one's father or mother, one should pay it back. In this case, the government should pay it back.
Since my time is up, I will leave it at that point.
10 p.m.
Mr. McClellan: Mr. Speaker, I want to take about 10 minutes' caucus time, and then the other 10 minutes or so could be taken by my colleague the member for Downsview (Mr. Di Santo), in rotation, if that is possible. My colleague the member for Hamilton East (Mr. Mackenzie) has set out our caucus position on the principal recommendations in the report. I do not want to cover that ground again.
We are engaged in a curious kind of exercise in the select committee. We are trying to apply artificial respiration to the private sector of the insurance industry, the private pension industry. I have commented on this matter before that, although I think we have come in with a good package of short-term reform, again to revive a thoroughly discredited private pension industry, we should not pretend or fool ourselves that the kind of reforms that simply bring Ontario pension legislation into the twentieth century from the Middle Ages are going to solve our long-term pension problems in this province or in this country.
The Royal Commission on the Status of Pensions in Ontario identified the essential problem in the pension dilemma. The problem is coverage. The problem is that private sector plans do not cover more than a minority of the work force. The most shocking statistic, obviously, is that only 22 per cent of working women are covered by private pension plans. My colleague the member for Hamilton East talked about the fact that because of our neanderthal vesting provision only a small portion of workers who are covered by plans actually collect any benefits.
We are dealing with the worst abuse with respect to private pensions and moving to five-year vesting, and it is to be hoped that after three years we will move closer and closer, as quickly as possible, to immediate vesting. That is not going to solve the problem, however. The majority of workers are still not covered by private plans. No matter how good we make our Pension Benefits Act, no matter how good the legislation is, it is not going to solve that fundamental problem.
We have heard witness after witness in the select committee testify to this essential reality.
Even proponents of the private pension sector concede that they are never going to be able to cover the entire work force. So they suggest all kinds of crazy solutions which involve writing off a large number of people who they say are relatively superfluous; surplus people. They earn incomes that are so low it does not really matter if they have a pension anyway. I am not distorting the argument. I am putting it baldly, but I am not distorting it.
The apostles of private pension plans, to the exclusion of anything else, are quite prepared to write off a large number of people, either people who are not working -- that is to say, women principally -- or low wage earners. They are able to cook up statistics that show a majority of middle-income and upper-income wage earners are already covered by private plans and, therefore, we have no problem, because we are proceeding to write off what amounts to either a large minority, or I suspect, a majority of workers in this province and in this country.
No matter how nice our reforms to private pensions, they are not going to solve the central problem as it was identified by the royal commission, which was the problem of coverage. That is why the royal commission recommended the provincial universal retirement system program: they conceded that only a mandatory plan that covers all employees is going to solve the essential problem.
The royal commission ideologically was not able to accept public mandatory pension coverage via an expansion of the Canada pension plan and, therefore, they came up with this kind of Rube Goldberg creation, the PURS program, which is a compulsory private money purchase plan. Legislation would be passed that would require every employee in Ontario to invest in a money purchase plan.
I regret to say that the PURS program has been laughed off the stage even before the debate has begun. Nobody seems to support the PURS program; not the Treasurer, not the Tories on the committee, as far as I could tell, none of the witnesses, as I recall, who came before the select committee supported the first plan, with the exception of the Investment Dealers Association, who I suppose could expect to be selling money purchase plans and were looking forward with a certain amount of relish to the prospect of a compulsory legislated market. They thought it was real keen. But nobody else, including the major financial representatives who were before the committee, thought the idea had very much merit.
That leaves us in a critical dilemma, because we do not have anything by way of an option that deals with the essential problem of coverage. I should say in parenthesis that the Treasurer has picked a new figure out of the hat. Let me quote from page four of his November 17 speech, "I know that such plans cover only 54 per cent of the full-time labour force." He is talking about private pension plans.
That is not the royal commission's figure. I do not know where the Treasurer got it. Perhaps somebody on the government side could do the committee the courtesy of providing us with that information. The royal commission's figures are substantially lower than that.
Mr. Mackenzie: Probably wishful thinking.
Mr. McClellan: I suspect it is wishful thinking. So it is going to be essential for us, when we move to the second phase, to confront the coverage issue squarely and honestly. I happen to believe the only rational solution to the coverage crisis is to expand our public pensions. Our initial option, in this party, was to double the Canada pension plan.
We are, at the present time, looking at what the appropriate mix should be between Canada pension benefits and old age security benefits. It may well be that a mix other than the one we have been looking at to date is the appropriate mix. My colleagues in the New Democratic Party have been engaged over the course of the last four or five months in a very tough look at this question of the proper mix between universal benefits under old age security and contributory benefits under the Canada pension plan.
It seems to me that is the proper area for discussion and examination, and not some will-o'-the-wisp search for magic solutions from the private sector, because it will not solve coverage problems, and not the Rube Goldberg proposals the royal commission has put forward, to which nobody gives any serious credence. Because coverage is such a critical problem, we have recommendation two in this select committee report.
I want to conclude with a few observations about that. I think every speaker has alluded to the fact that there are many thousands of elderly retirees in this province who have no pension coverage of any kind and are totally reliant on public programs, principally the income-tested guaranteed income supplement and the provincial Gains program, for their survival.
This is simply symptomatic of the coverage crisis, that thousands and thousands of senior citizens who had no pension plan are totally reliant on the welfare-based Gains and GIS. The great tragedy is that despite old age security, the guaranteed income supplement and the provincial Gains program, the rates for single people are still below the poverty line in Ontario.
So we recommended, in recommendation two, as did the royal commission, that the Gains rates be increased to 60 per cent of the married rate in order that the incomes of Gains recipients in Ontario would be above the poverty line. Despite the fact that we had a consensus on that issue, when we adjourned our final in-camera session we had a report with a dissent attached to it.
10:10 p.m.
If the members are perhaps curious at all as to why there is an amount of bitterness with respect to this issue, it is because of the bad faith shown by some of the members of the committee, who left that room with the chairman's assurance that we had a consensus, that we were agreed, despite our differences, to support the recommendations in the report, including the recommendation to increase the guaranteed annual income system rates. Yet, when it came down to the crunch, they turned that consensus down and filed a dissent.
At any rate, I suppose that is their political problem, but it weakens, as the member for London Centre (Mr. Peterson) said, the force of the report. It gives the government an excuse for continuing to delay action on this scandalous problem that singles in Ontario, who are retired and living on Gains, live below the poverty line. It is an obscenity in a civilized society that this situation continues. It has been raised time and time again in the Legislature. It is now a major recommendation of a select committee report. I can only hope that the House will adopt this report and that the government will move as quickly as is humanly possible to raise the Gains rates above the poverty line.
Mr. Gillies: Mr. Speaker, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of sitting on this, my first select committee, and I would echo the comments that I think just about every speaker has made tonight about the very excellent assistance we received and the guidance and very good judgement shown by our chairman, the member for Prince Edward-Lennox (Mr. J. A. Taylor).
We started the deliberations of this committee with many important questions, some of which we have been able to address in the interim report, some of which hopefully we will address in the final report, and some of which frankly I am not sure we will address at all.
We have to look at the very role of social security, the role of pensions. Some members of the committee were concerned about the connotation of the various public programs that benefit senior citizens and that was one of the arguments used by some of my colleagues in advocating an expansion and extension of the Canada pension plan. Indeed, I think that is one option the committee must look at very seriously.
What is the role then of public pensions? What are the benefits? What are the downsides? I think a very key issue is the adequacy of coverage.
One question the committee will have to look at, which certainly was not covered in the interim report, is the question of the retirement age. There are two arguments that come to the fore here. One is that an earlier retirement, in this day and age of a growing work force and growing unemployment, could lead to greater availability of positions and mobility and types of labour for young people.
Of course, the counter-argument is that the raising of the retirement age could allow people to be more productive longer. It would remove an artificial barrier, which I think many senior citizens find less than attractive, and would allow people to be somewhat positive in their contribution to society and in their monetary contribution towards their own retirement for a longer period of time. I would hope the committee will have time to look at that when we reconvene in the winter.
We have a problem in coverage. I think the member for Bellwoods (Mr. McClellan) stated it very clearly and quite properly. There are a number of different figures circulating, but the federal task force reporting in April suggested that 48 per cent of workers were covered by employer sponsored plans. That is less than half. The Canadian employer sponsored pension coverage is somewhat less than that of other countries in the western world. I think we have to look very carefully at what conditions may be in place and what options we are missing that have led to this inadequacy of coverage vis-a-vis some other countries with which we might well be compared.
Less than half the workers in our country have employer sponsored programs which include survivor benefits. Many widows do not have any private coverage when they are left to their own devices. This, quite frankly, is why I felt very strongly at the time of our deliberations, and still feel strongly, that we have to look at the benefits paid under the public schemes.
If one refers to the first page of the interim report it says, "The old age supplement, guaranteed income supplement and guaranteed annual income system ensure a monthly income in Ontario of $493.24 for a single person and $928.32 for a married couple." I think the feeling of most members on the committee was to question the adequacy of the amount available to a single person. Let us face it, we are talking here mainly about widows. We are talking about retired female senior citizens.
We feel, and it is stated in the interim report, that the level for a single person should be raised to about $550 a month minimum and that is why I moved recommendation number two, that we should move to increase that rate immediately. I still feel there is no benefit to us to wait for consultation with another level of government when we identified a very serious problem and one that could well be addressed by this government on the recommendation of members of this Legislature.
However, I might say I feel there is some slight overreaction on the part of some members in that I really think the disagreement is over process rather than substance. I do not particularly think any member of our committee -- a committee that worked very closely in a nonpartisan spirit for some months -- disagrees with the principle. I do think there is some concern as to whether the consultation with Ottawa should go before or after whatever decision this government might make.
However, I would not back away from my argument that we should indeed recommend that the government act on this recommendation without delay.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Hear, hear. And you will resign if they do not
Mr. Gillies: Oh, it would be a very serious matter that would cause me to resign.
This is a matter which I have raised before. I raised it in the estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I have raised in the House, and I recall the member for Kitchener (Mr. Breithaupt) also raising this matter. I am also concerned, I might add, with the adequacy of the so-called widow's pension, because I believe there is a definite inadequacy of income for women who are left by themselves who are under 65.
I happen to think our government has a very excellent record in terms of taking care of its senior citizens. I do feel, however, there is a gap with women left by themselves between the ages of 60 and 65, many of whom contact me, and I am sure other members in their offices, and say they can hardly wait until the day they cross that magic age when they feel that the sky will almost open with various types of assistance that are available to them then.
Especially in the economic climate in which we find ourselves, a woman over the age of 60, left by herself, certainly in my riding, is not going to have a very good chance of finding a job so that she can support herself and, therefore, it is incumbent upon the government to offer whatever assistance we can to her.
The other members have talked about the matters we did agree on and they are far more, and far more all encompassing, than the matters on which we did not agree. We came in with five-year vesting and, as other members have noted, we will probably reduce that -- and I look forward to that -- possibly to one year, possibly to immediate vesting. I think the committee will have to look at that again.
We looked at the question of employee representation on the administration of pension funds, which I think is long overdue. A minimum of one employee should be on every fund, I would suggest. Again, perhaps the committee or the government should look in the future at just how we can best accommodate all of the various labour unions and employee groups that might be involved in any single fund, because we could have a problem of the adequacy of that representation.
The Acting Speaker (Mr. McKessock): The member's time has expired.
Mr. Gillies: Just in summation then, I am looking forward to the committee sitting again in the winter. I am looking forward to the progress we will be able to make, I hope, on some more substantive issues in the field of pensions.
10:20 p.m.
Mr. Di Santo: Mr. Speaker, I was not a member of the select committee.
[Applause.]
Mr. Di Santo: I am glad all the Liberal hopefuls are contending for my support. I will decide in January which one of them I will support.
I would like to participate in this debate because I feel very strongly about the condition of pensions in Ontario. I think the select committee's terms of reference were very narrow. They were not able to address the very serious questions of pensions and the age of retirement and the problems they bring with them, but I think some of the recommendations on vesting and portability go in the right direction.
Perhaps the dissenting report of the three members, the member for Oriole (Mr. Williams), the member for Mississauga North (Mr. Jones) and the member for Sarnia (Mr. Brandt), speaks to the real problems the senior citizens of Ontario are faced with.
These problems were emphasized last week in the report of the Ontario Status of Women Council. That report did not say anything new, but it reminded us that there are 400,000 women in Ontario who are living below the poverty line. The recommendation of the committee was not that radical. In fact, the majority of the committee recommended adjusting Gains temporarily to bring attention to the condition of senior citizens, and especially women.
Women are the ones who suffer most, because on average in Canada they survive their husbands by eight years, and they are the ones who then cannot survive. The committee agreed that survivors' pensions are inadequate. A widow cannot survive on 50 per cent of the combined pension of husband and wife.
Therefore, I think the dissenting recommendation of the three Conservative members is a useless cruelty. It means they refuse to understand there are some people in this society who just cannot survive. If the purpose of the select committee was to try to find means to make pensions more adequate, then perhaps that was one of the ways. As other members said before, this is not an imposition on the Treasury of the province for an indefinite period of time. It is a requirement of the Treasury of Ontario until the problem of pensions is resolved.
We understand perfectly that pensioners do not have much clout. They are not an organized group, they are not a pressure group. In fact, the federal and provincial governments try to play games with them. We remember very well when, in 1980, Monique Begin pledged she would fight for pensioners, and especially pensions for housewives. Then just four months ago, speaking at the conference on pensions at Lake Louise, she said, "I promised I would fight in order to get better pensions for the people of Canada, but we cannot because we do not have the money."
Allan MacEachen did the same. During the campaign and immediately after the election he promised they would revise the pension system, but in the last budget there was not one single penny for pensioners. So the recommendation of this committee to increase Gains was a gesture of goodwill towards people who cannot survive, who have problems, who live alone, who are fearful, who have no money for food. The government had the nerve to refuse that to the senior citizens, and especially to old women.
Mr. Jones: Our dissent is not going to slow it down one iota. Our determination is the same but we did not want the federal government --
Mr. Mackenzie: He just made the argument. Did you not listen to him?
Mr. Di Santo: I do not want to say the word because it is not parliamentary, but the fact is the government members are fat cats. That is why the government does not understand the plight of people who can barely survive. It has no sensitivity. It is heartless. The member for Brantford (Mr. Gillies) said that --
Hon. Mr. Ashe: What would happen if you were living in Saskatchewan? You get 25 bucks a month.
Mr. Di Santo: I never thought the member would make it to the cabinet; he is proving that day in and day out. We are talking about Ontario.
Mr. McClellan: How are the cheques coming, George? Getting the cheques sorted out? You are doing a great job.
Mr. Di Santo: We are talking about Ontario. The minister is not even able to send out grants to senior citizens. In my riding last week there were senior citizens who had received two cheques and some people who are not even 65 receiving their cheques.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: Look how generous we are. You are complaining we are not supplying money.
Mr. Di Santo: We are not talking tonight about the mismanagement of the economy by the government; we are talking about pensions, about a human problem.
As my NDP colleagues and my colleagues in the Liberal caucus said, recommendation number two was not meant to solve the problems of pensions. The problems of pensions are portability, vesting, and lowering the pensionable age which the government so often confuses with the age of retirement. The government did not want even to do that. That proves that as soon as the government came back with a majority, it forgot about the ordinary people of Ontario, about those people who trusted it, those people who believed it and who are sorry now.
I want to speak briefly, because I felt very strongly about this and as I feel very strongly about the pensionable age that was not dealt with by the committee and to which the member for Brantford made short mention. For many people, 65 years of age is an age when they cannot work any longer.
In my opinion if the government wants to increase the retirement age it can do that. It can abolish the retirement age. I think there should be no retirement age, but the pensionable age should be brought down to the age of 60 to give retired people the option to work or not to work, give them the choice. Of course when the government talks about other people it always talks about costs and money, but when it comes to buying a jet it knows where to get the money. When it comes to buying Suncor --
Hon. Mr. Ashe: When you do not have responsibilities, you do not worry about money. That is why you can yatter on and on and on.
Mr. Di Santo: When the government buys Suncor the minister is totally ignorant of the deal. His government spent $650 million; then he is upset because --
10:30 p.m.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: What about the Saskatchewan government? Has it ever bought anything?
Mr. Di Santo: I do not think the whip with the limousine knew anything about the Suncor deal, but when we talk of social services, when we talk of services to the people, all at once he asks how much it will cost the constituents of Ontario. Of course there is a question the people of Ontario should ask and that is how much this government costs them. Today we saw the farmers protesting up there. I have never seen farmers come into this House and yell because of what the government is doing to them.
Mr. Watson: Oh, come on now. The member was here two years ago.
Mr. Di Santo: They were yelling at the government. They were not yelling at us.
Mr. J. M. Johnson: You are a disgrace supporting something like that.
Mr. Di Santo: I am elated by the outflow of intelligence coming from the Conservative caucus. I really enjoy it.
SECURITY OF LEGISLATIVE BUILDING
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of privilege in regard to a couple of matters that have happened in the House this week. On Tuesday last we witnessed a demonstration in the galleries which indicated to me there was some weakness in security. I particularly noticed it. I had a group of people from Mississauga East who were in the gallery. They were not surprised when they were evicted as well because of the disturbance. Today we witnessed a disturbance in the Speaker's gallery.
I find it disgraceful this was allowed to happen. I find even more disgraceful the fact that the actions of these people in the gallery were applauded by both opposition parties, which to me was an insult to the integrity of this House.
Mr. Ruston: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I am on my point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: I am listening to the point of privilege.
Mr. Mancini: Well, don't make allegations like that.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: You did applaud.
The Deputy Speaker: Let us get to your personal point of privilege.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: Mr. Speaker, on my point of privilege, I would like to go further. I repeat, the actions of the people in the gallery were applauded by the joint parties across the way. I would like to make one request of you and it is my point of personal privilege --
The Deputy Speaker: I know, but you are being very antagonistic.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I have a request of you, Mr. Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: I am listening to the request.
Hon. Mr. Gregory: I wish to request that the Speaker's office first investigate how these people got into the Speaker's gallery and who signed them in. I would also like to know why they were let in past the security guards carrying briefcases and overcoats. I would like, Mr. Speaker, if you would report back to this House early next week.
The Deputy Speaker: Your point of privilege is taken and the Speaker's office will follow it up, at least as best as I can say on my authority.
Mr. Ruston: On the same point, Mr. Speaker, the member for Hastings-Peterborough (Mr. Pollock) this afternoon stood in his place and was yelling at the people in the Speaker's gallery. I think that is not proper for any member in this Legislature.
Mr. Martel: Mr. Speaker, could I draw your attention to the time. It is now past 10:30 p.m. and, unless you have a motion to continue, the House stands adjourned.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, perhaps we could ignore the time for a minute while I make my statement.
The Deputy Speaker: Is this about adjourning the debate on the report?
Hon. Mr. Wells: I am sure my friend, including my friend the member for Renfrew South (Mr. Yakabuski) would be very interested in this, if he pays the usual attention he does to this House.
Mr. Mancini: On a point of privilege, Mr. Speaker.
The Deputy Speaker: Order. Let us get this straightened around. How am I going to recognize a point of privilege when we are past the clock?
Mr. Mancini: The same way, Mr. Speaker, that you recognized the point of privilege from the government whip.
The Deputy Speaker: I did. The time was at 10:30 p.m. I felt there was recognition. I recognized one of your own honourable colleagues. I recognized in due course the member for Sudbury East. I think I have been as fair as possible to all concerned. I think the member for Mississauga East had his say. I was disappointed in his manner in terms of allegations but, on the other hand, there were also comments from the member for Essex South and he had his kick back. I figure we are all straightened around. It is after 10:30 --
Mr. Mancini: We don't have permission to go beyond 10:30 p.m. either. If you aren't going to listen to my point of privilege, we aren't going to give permission.
The Deputy Speaker: I so order. I rule you out of order.
On motion by Mr. Wells, the debate was adjourned.
Hon. Mr. Wells: Mr. Speaker, I wish to indicate the business of the House for next week.
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, we don't have the permission of the House to go beyond 10:30 p.m. yet.
The Deputy Speaker: Well, right, now we have that problem.
Hon. Mr. Ashe: Why don't you just leave and then you won't have to listen to it?
Hon. Mr. Wells: I might just remind my friend that the orders also call for the House to be informed of the business for next week. If the member is not interested in what the business is --
Mr. Mancini: Mr. Speaker, I am interested in having my point of privilege, in order to respond to the comments made by the member for Mississauga East. That is what I am interested in.
BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Hon. Mr. Wells: I would like to indicate the business of the House for the balance of this week and for next week.
Tomorrow, Friday, we will consider the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs.
On Monday afternoon, December 7, we will be concluding the estimates of the Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs, followed by second reading in committee of the whole House on Bill 166.
On Monday evening, in committee of the whole, we will consider third reading of Bill 7, followed by Bills 107 and 104 for second reading in committee of the whole House, and Bill 125 for second reading.
We will be meeting on Tuesday afternoon and evening, December 8. We will sit on Wednesday afternoon, December 9, from 2 p.m. until 6 p.m. with question period at 2 p.m. On Thursday morning, December 10, we will sit at 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. At those times, any bills not completed Monday evening will be considered, followed in sequence by Bills 151 and 176, second reading and committee of the whole House; Bills 156 and 171, second reading and committee of the whole; Bill 159 for second reading; Bill 136 for second reading and committee of the whole; Bills 175 and 183 for second reading, and Bill 178 for second reading.
On Wednesday, December 9, the general government, resources development, and administration of justice committees may meet in the morning.
Remembering the House will be meeting Thursday morning from 10 until 1 p.m., on Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. there will be question period, followed by debate on the motion of no confidence moved by the member for Ottawa Centre (Mr. Cassidy) with a vote at 5:45 p.m.
On Thursday evening, we will continue with any legislation on the list I have already read that has not already been completed. There will be a vote at 10:15 p.m. on the motion for adoption of the recommendations contained in the first report of the select committee on pensions which we have just been debating.
On Friday, December 11. we will begin the estimates of the offices of the Lieutenant Governor, the Premier and the Cabinet.
Mr. Bradley: Mr. Speaker, did the minister say the House is not sitting next Wednesday night?
Hon. Mr. Wells: That is right. The House is not sitting next Wednesday night. It is sitting from two until six o'clock, with question period at two o'clock on Wednesday.
The House adjourned at 10:38 p.m.