Thank you, Ric.

Good afternoon, everybody.

There is no other organization in Canada that has done more work promoting retirement security for plan members than ACPM, while at the same time creating an environment where plan sponsors continue to offer pension plans.

ACPM clearly understands the unfortunate situation when a plan sponsor fails and plan members might not receive 100% of their benefit entitlement. Providing secure benefits to plan members is something ACPM has been working on for decades.

ACPM believes that DB pension plans are very valuable benefits for plan members, but we need to recognize that employers choose voluntarily to create and support these plans. Pension plan coverage—particularly defined benefit—has declined in Canada fairly precipitously over the last number of years. Public sector DB plan membership in Canada—this is from StatsCan—was about 82% 20 years ago. It's 82% today. Twenty years ago, private sector DB plan membership was about 21%. Currently, it's around 9%. It's the 9% we're talking about today. That's the worry at ACPM: the deterioration of the 9%.

Our specific concerns relate to the fact that employers need credit and loans to operate, and that banks and bond holders will not lend, or charge significantly higher interest rates, if they are subordinate to pension plans. This will incent board CEOs and CFOs to terminate pension plans that are subject to this legislation. Even those employers who would never find themselves in a bankruptcy situation will be incented to terminate these plans and wind them up.

Although Bill C-228 has the admirable goal of giving priority to plan members in the event of a bankruptcy, we believe what will happen is that plans will be terminated. Bill C-228 would apply to very few plans, because those plans will have been wound up.

At this point, I'm going to hand things over to my colleague Andrea Boctor.

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