Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations among the parties, and I believe that if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the House recognizes that there are approximately 136,000 recipients of UK state pensions in Canada;

That it recognizes the UK government does not provide annual indexed increases to UK pensioners residing in Canada, effectively freezing their pensions at the levels they were at when they first claimed their pensions in Canada;

That it recognizes Canada provides annual indexed increases to Canadian pensioners who live in the UK;

That it recognizes UK pensioners living in the USA, Germany, Italy, Barbados, Bermuda, Israel, Jamaica and other countries receive annual indexed increases;

That it recognizes frozen pensions represent a combined loss of over $500 million per year to the Canadian economy and to Canadian taxpayers, due to three factors: frozen pensions force thousands of UK pensioners in Canada to rely on Canada's social assistance programs such as the Guaranteed Income Supplement, the significant loss of CRA tax revenues due to the lower income of 136,000 pensioners, and the loss of sales tax revenues due to the loss of discretionary income;

That it recognizes frozen UK pensions represent an injustice to both UK pensioners in Canada and to Canadian taxpayers;

That it recognizes the UK government is currently negotiating new pension indexing agreements with EU countries due to Brexit, and that now is the appropriate time for the UK government to negotiate a pension indexing agreement with Canada;

That the House believes the government should press the UK government to open negotiations with Canada to remedy this situation as soon as possible and provide annual indexed pension increases to UK pensioners residing in Canada.

Paul Manly

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