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Results: 1 - 10 of 10
Hassan Yussuff
View Hassan Yussuff Profile
Hassan Yussuff
2021-06-01 11:12
Thank you, Chair.
First let me thank the committee for the opportunity to present to you today.
I represent the Canadian Labour Congress, Canada's largest central labour body in the country, and it speaks on national issues on behalf of three million working men and women from coast to coast. The CLC, of course, supports Bill C-253, and I want to thank the members who voted to advance this bill.
For years, the CLC has advocated changing the bankruptcy laws in our country. Workers and pensioners should be first in line, not last, when it comes to paying creditors. Workers pay for their defined benefits, pensions and other post-retirement employment benefits by deferring part of their compensation. Employers have a legal obligation to pay these promised pensions in retirement. It is totally unacceptable that earned benefits are taken away from pensioners, through no fault of their own, at a time in their lives when they are least able to adjust. Pensioners cannot simply go back to work when their pensions are cut. They need the post-retirement drug coverage and benefits that they have earned through working for a lifetime.
This tragedy has gone on too long. It has occurred too often. It cannot go on any longer. It is time to fix this problem.
The insolvency process is rigged against working people. The recent Laurentian University example shows how small unions are isolated and besieged by CCAA proceedings. Workers are threatened with devastating job losses unless they agree to make deep concessions to wages, pensions and benefits.
The CLC believes that public institutions should be excluded altogether from the CCAA and the BIA. The federal insolvency laws are meant for commercial corporate reorganizations. They were never meant to provide cover for provincial governments that refuse to live up to their fiscal obligations and expect workers and pensioners to pay the costs. The CLC would prefer that the claims of workers and pensioners be moved to the front of the line, as Bill C-253 seeks to do.
If there is no consensus to do so, the CLC believes that all parties should consider granting pensioners' and employees' claims the status of “preferred claim”. This would place them immediately behind the secure creditors in priority of claims, but ahead of unsecured creditors. We believe that treating employees' claims as preferred claims will materially improve outcomes for workers and pensioners.
However, getting the data to establish this is not easy. Currently the data is controlled by the big accounting firms—especially Ernst & Young, KPMG, Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers —that act as monitors in CCAA proceedings and trustees in bankruptcies. There is a clear public policy purpose for making this data available for researchers. We are seeking aggregate anonymized data for large business insolvencies in which pension deficits are involved. We are not seeking commercially sensitive data. In our view, the superintendent of bankruptcy should be required to obtain this data from monitors and make it available to researchers.
We also recommend that the federal government conduct a feasibility study to establish a national mandatory pension insurance scheme for Canada. This study should form the basis of discussions with the provinces to establish a national scheme to rescue stranded pensions.
Finally, the government must stop company executives from enriching themselves and shareholders when there is a serious pension deficit.
The 2017 Sears Canada CCAA filing and liquidation was an outrage. Beginning in 2010, Sears paid $1.5 billion to shareholders in dividends and share buybacks. By doing so, Sears paid five and a half times more to its shareholders than it would have cost to entirely erase the deficit in its DB pension plan. Sears' decision in 2013 to pay a $500-million dividend when the pension deficit stood at $313 million would alone have been enough to eliminate the deficit. Instead, Sears Canada pensioners outside of Ontario were forced to accept cuts in benefits. This is a profound injustice. It should never be permitted to happen again.
Thank you very much. I look forward to any questions that committee members may have.
I wish all the best to you.
View Scott Duvall Profile
NDP (ON)
Thank you.
One of the things that Mr. Yussuff said—and I feel it's outrageous that this could actually happen—is that when Sears paid $500 million to dividends in 2013, they still had a $313-million pension deficit. How can we prevent companies from doing this in the future? They're the ones that plan going into CCAA. How do we stop this paying of dividends when there is a huge debt in the pension fund?
Maybe Mr. Lemieux wants to answer.
Dominic Lemieux
View Dominic Lemieux Profile
Dominic Lemieux
2021-06-01 12:24
This amounts to taking money out of our pensioners' pockets and redistributing it to shareholders, who are well off, for the most part.
I would come back to my initial proposal. First, Bill C‑253 has to be passed. In addition, the provinces have to ensure that pension funds are 100% funded. It is indecent for a company to give money to its shareholders when it is not paying its contribution to the pension fund. That is the same thing as me, as a head of household who is about to retire, being in debt and my credit cards being maxed out, but deciding to head south for two weeks. It would make no sense to leave my children like that, in a vulnerable position. Well, that is exactly what we allow, in Canada: taking money from pensioners' pockets, from the most vulnerable people, and distributing it to company shareholders.
View Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Ghiz, I don't want to put you entirely on the spot, but I did read recently in the Financial Post that Rogers and Telus received, I think it was $63 million, from the wage subsidy but then Telus paid out dividends. That makes me uncomfortable.
Does it make you uncomfortable?
Robert Ghiz
View Robert Ghiz Profile
Robert Ghiz
2020-12-08 11:50
I can't answer questions about individual member of our association.
Nonetheless, I believe you were at the committee hearing the other day when the chair of the CRTC, Ian Scott, was there. He talked about how our industry has stepped up to put out programs to help individuals and customers, as well as companies, in health care and governments, during COVID-19. So our industry did respond to some of the issues out there.
View Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Medline, you have indicated that all resources have been put into your teammates. Your company has described them as family members. Describe the recent increase to shareholder dividends and how that accords with what you described to this committee in relation to putting all of the resources into your teammates, family members and your essential workers.
Michael Medline
View Michael Medline Profile
Michael Medline
2020-07-10 15:41
We have a lot of stakeholders. We have to do everything we can for our teammates. We put every penny we could and every effort we could into the safety and health of our teammates. In fact, I was on a call with Chinese and Italian grocers early on in the pandemic, heard about plexiglass and put plexiglass in without knowing how much it was going to cost.
In terms of why we pay dividends, it's because ordinary Canadians count on those dividends to retire and to put their kids through school. There's a balance, but teammates, as you said—and you quoted me there—are so important.
View Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Profile
Lib. (ON)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you paid just over $100 million in pandemic pay, additional pay. What's the number represented by the increase in shareholder payout?
Michael Medline
View Michael Medline Profile
Michael Medline
2020-07-10 15:42
The increase in dividends was four cents per quarter. I'd have to do the math. I'll send it to your office.
View Sébastien Lemire Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think we have to face the facts: Canadians having access to high-speed Internet service, to broadband Internet service, is a very significant issue, and tonight's meeting proves it.
I would like to ask questions about concrete assistance for people who pay themselves salaries in the form of dividends. I would also like to ask a question about the Canada summer jobs program.
Are we all aware that compensation for businesses is increasing from 50% to 100%, from the same envelope? In the end, jobs have been cut, many of them in agriculture. Have you thought about creating a summer jobs program in agriculture? A program of that kind would have to be flexible throughout the year, which would make it possible to mitigate the sad consequences of the measure.
Since my colleague Yves Perron is quite dissatisfied with the answers he has received throughout the day, I will give him a chance to ask a question.
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