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Results: 16 - 30 of 656
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for your statements. Thank you very much, Mr. Eady, for your very compelling testimony. I understand the emotional charge associated with this issue.
I also thank my colleagues for reflecting on these concerns and doing so outside the box. Refocusing the issue of fairness is important to me.
Maybe we could take a cue from White Birch Paper, for example.
Mr. L'Italien, you have studied this particular case. What can we learn from this saga?
François L'Italien
View François L'Italien Profile
François L'Italien
2021-06-08 11:42
Thank you for your question.
In fact, we did a thorough economic analysis based on the documents that were made available by the financial comptroller Ernst & Young at the time of the restructuring, in 2010. We were able to reconstruct the owner's financial strategy by getting hold of the annual reports, as well as reports produced by independent auditors.
We should have investigated further, but due to lack of resources and time, we were unable to pursue this avenue. However, we came to the conclusion that behind the exorbitant indebtedness of the Stadacona plant in Quebec City there was a corporate scheme. Given the maturity of the defined benefit plan for the plant's employees, given also that the bulk of the management costs and all the variable capital, i.e. the expenses associated with salaries and the pension plan related to this plant, were disproportionate in the eyes of the owner, there was a strategy of excessive indebtedness; this led the owner to place himself under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act, the CCAA.
In our view, what emerges from this case is that, while the CCAA was originally intended to enable companies in real financial difficulty to get back on their feet, over time it has enabled some employers to develop stratagems.
There really should be thorough economic investigations. We know that the case of Sears Canada in Ontario pointed in the direction of improper payment of certain revenues to the company's shareholders at a time when it was known that the company was in financial difficulty. So we see that the argument in the CCAA that creditors must be protected from default or business risk does not hold up in a systematic way. We need to look at these cases. We have been seeing repeated restructurings for several years now, and we think the time has come to at least take stock of the restructuring cases and adjust the focus.
In our view, raising the level of protection for pension plans is a step in the right direction to take stock and improve pension protection.
View Michael Chong Profile
CPC (ON)
Canada has been listed in the State Department's reports, as well as in other reports, as being a laggard on money laundering, and has also been criticized for its opacity around beneficial ownership.
What measures should be put in place by the Government of Canada and the provinces to move us from being laggards in this area to being world leaders?
Peter M. German, Q.C.
View Peter M. German, Q.C. Profile
Peter M. German, Q.C.
2021-06-07 20:51
I'll deal with the second part of it first.
In terms of beneficial ownership, we always have to keep in mind that there are two aspects to it. There's beneficial ownership of corporations and there's beneficial ownership of land. Land being a provincial responsibility, it falls to the provinces to deal with that. British Columbia now is the first province to create a beneficial ownership registry for land. We will hopefully find the ultimate beneficial owner of all the land in our province.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, if we are looking at beneficial ownership of corporations, that has to come from the federal government. We know the federal government has made an announcement that it's looking at a federal beneficial ownership registry for corporations, I believe, in 2025, simply because you can incorporate both provincially and nationally.
Somehow you have to bring this together. I certainly favour beneficial ownership registries for both land and corporations. The important thing, however, is.... There are a number of factors, but without belabouring it, there are two important factors that I see. The first is “garbage in, garbage out”. You have to make sure there is some verification of what is going in or else it's worthless. There has to be a bit of a checking process—
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-07 11:14
Do you also believe that companies must be more responsible for ensuring that the content they are publishing does not contain minors and has the express and explicit consent of the individuals depicted?
View Steven Guilbeault Profile
Lib. (QC)
Companies should abide by Canadian laws. Whether they're online companies or physical companies, there should be no distinction. As I said earlier, the challenge we face now is that the tools we have to deal with these online harms just aren't adapted to the virtual world.
Melissa Lukings
View Melissa Lukings Profile
Melissa Lukings
2021-06-07 12:25
No worries.
The committee is dealing with a Canadian-controlled private corporation, a CCPC, which is a private commercial organization based in and operating with headquarters located in Canada. It is a Canadian company. We know this, and that's fine. Commercial organizations in Canada are bound by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act. PIPEDA outlines the rules and remedies, including the fines and other penalties, for corporations that fail to abide by the provisions specified in the act.
Beyond the corporate level, we also have the Criminal Code of Canada, which outlines the criminal offences and punishments for committing such offences. We have these. We need to apply them. Everyone is bound by the Criminal Code of Canada.
Why, then, do we need additional regulations? Why do we need more oversight when we have not yet tried to simply apply the law we already have? We have these laws. We can use them, so let's use them. That's what they're for. What's the point in even having these statutes if you're not going to apply them when they're needed? What are we doing here?
We're here because a portion of those involved have decided to conflate the issue of corporate negligence with highly sexualized and emotive criminal activity—read again, child rape porn testimony. It elicits an emotional response—the sympathetic nervous system and all of that. It doesn't matter. This is about a corporation and user-generated content. It does not matter what is depicted in the content as much as it matters that the content, whatever it may be, should not have gotten past the corporation's screening system before being made live on the site. When the issue was brought to its attention, the corporation responded inadequately at first, so we need corporate law. We need to look at liability and feasibility standards.
Why has this become a forum for grandstanding religious ideologies? I'm sure you've all heard about Exodus Cry in the news, if you've been following it. Exodus Cry is a fundamental Christian organization founded on religious ideologies stemming from the United States. Why is it relevant to a question of corporate liability in Canada? It isn't. It doesn't make any sense.
Why are we arguing about exploitation? Why are we discussing mass censorship? Is that not a massive overreaction to a simple corporate negligence question? It seems glaringly obvious to me, so why are we not discussing reasonable options for encouraging corporations to better serve their users?
Also, I have some opinions about the genderedness of this. You can read about it in my notes.
When it comes down to it, you can't eliminate sex. We're humans, and there is always going to be a demand for sex. You can't eliminate sex work because the demand exists. You can't eliminate extramarital sex or porn or masturbation or demand for sexual services, but sexual assault is illegal, even when that person is your spouse. We need it to be that way. We want to protect people. If you're saying you can do certain things only within the context of marriage, you're setting yourself up for failure. It's true.
Yes, I said “masturbation” in a hearing. Oh my God.
You cannot eliminate base human desires, so you can't eliminate sex. That would be silly. It's okay to not like these things, and just because you don't like a thing or you feel that a thing is not for you, it doesn't mean it's inherently evil and should be eliminated. It doesn't work that way. It's not about and should not be about pornography or the actual content of online material here. This is about creating reasonable laws that work for Canada, Canadian corporations and everyone residing within Canada. We don't need new regulations; we don't need a new regulator, and we don't need online censorship. We need to use the tools we already have, which were designed for a reason. Why be redundant?
That is my diatribe.
Thank you for having me. I will take any questions you throw at me.
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-07 12:30
Thanks, Chair.
Melissa, thanks for your testimony and for being here today.
I share your perspective that it is crucial to distinguish between the hosting and distribution of child sexual abuse material and of material and images that don't have the explicit consent of the people depicted in them.
I think you'd agree—or let me know if you do—that people have a right to own their own images and content that include them, and also the right to withdraw that if they so choose. This is the thing that I think all of us are grappling with—your very strong point about the Criminal Code already being in place and the laws and the regulations that already exist to provide these protections for children and for others who do not give their consent.
What do you make of what the actual problem is, then? What is the enforcement issue, the lack of enforcement and the lack of application of the existing law?
Melissa Lukings
View Melissa Lukings Profile
Melissa Lukings
2021-06-07 12:31
I think the current issue is that perhaps the penalties that currently exist in PIPEDA are not strong enough to deter corporations. I'm not saying to put in new regulations—I'm not saying that—but when you're going to do the digital charter implementation act and you're discussing things like Bill C-10 and Bill C-11, it's important to remember that.
I think there is room for improvement. Because we've found that financial penalties don't really seem to impact companies that make a lot of money, fines could instead be based on percentages. The key here is that we need to not have increased regulation. If what we're trying to do is in fact what we say we're trying to do, which is to reduce human trafficking and harm to young people, additional regulations are not going to help that.
Did I answer your question?
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
CPC (AB)
View Shannon Stubbs Profile
2021-06-07 12:32
Yes.
On April 19 you mentioned a couple of possibilities related to the digital charter implementation act. You touched on the possibility of fines for companies that host and distribute already illegal content. The Minister of Heritage was just here, as you know, so I just wonder if there is.... I understand that you got cut off in your testimony last time, so I just want to see if there are any other details or recommendations you wanted to add in terms of that work.
Melissa Lukings
View Melissa Lukings Profile
Melissa Lukings
2021-06-07 12:33
In terms of the digital charter implementation act?
Melissa Lukings
View Melissa Lukings Profile
Melissa Lukings
2021-06-07 12:33
For corporations the question here is, how much responsibility do they have to have in order to cover their own selves from liability for negligence? That needs to be specified. It needs to be put in words.
Other than that, we really need to work on applying the laws that we have, so if there's something standing in the way of that and that can be remedied through the new digital charter implementation act, that should be discussed, absolutely. That is my recommendation.
Cody Cooper
View Cody Cooper Profile
Cody Cooper
2021-06-03 11:16
Thank you.
I'm the president and chair of the CCRetirees organization for the non-represented salaried retirees of the former Chrysler Canada. As well, I'm the vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners.
The 23 member groups of the Canadian Federation of Pensioners total over 300,000 individuals, and with our alliances with CARP, CanAge and the National Pensioners Federation, we represent the voice of millions of Canadian pensioners.
The two decades of this century have been notable, with the carnage inflicted on pensioners and the ongoing lack of meaningful measures taken to protect the income security of those who have retired with a defined benefit pension.
In the press these pensions are often referred to as “guaranteed”. That would be news to those from Nortel, Sears and others, who have seen their retirement security eroded as they were left unprotected because of the legislative scheme.
Pensions are deferred wages, earned while working and payable upon retirement. The scope and the terms of the pensions are within the realm of the employer. No one forced the employer to make such arrangements.
Pensioners deserve the pension promised by their employer. Unlike others involved in bankruptcy, pensioners' loss is forever, as opposed to a note or a supplier credit from a contractor or plumber.
The responsibility to ensure pension protection falls upon the government. Pensioners have no control, input or approval over changes to their pensions. Several countries do a better job of protecting pensions than Canada—the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany come to mind—and somehow their economic activity continues.
There have been numerous consultations and submissions, including a request from the Canadian Federation of Pensioners, to study the best solution to ensuring full protection of pensioners in insolvency. To the best of my knowledge, there has been no response from government.
The current government touts its whole-of-government approach, issued after the latest consultations. This is the equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Bill C-253 represents the only credible solution on the table. This is a solution with zero cost to the taxpayer. There will be, and always has been, those who claim such measures would lead to more liquidations instead of restructuring. That Indalex was the law of the land and the business world continued indicates that this is just spin at best. Many of these opponents issued recent profit statements which belie the need to protect their interests at the expense of pensioners. Their assumption seems to imply that management would not alter its behaviour and treat seriously pension obligations and deficits.
Corporations make decisions and act within the law. The law enacted by government has generated ongoing hardship on pensioners and their families. It's your role to address the problems which have arisen from your legislative scheme. Please, no more studies, consultations or promises. A transition period is inevitable, but make sure it's not undue.
This is Seniors Month. Do something real, and do it now. Failure to act in a timely manner is the equivalent of senior financial abuse.
Please support and enact Bill C-253. Thank you.
Results: 16 - 30 of 656 | Page: 2 of 44

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