Sarnia-Lambton's MP is trying to enhance pension protection for millions of hard working Canadians.
Marilyn Gladu introduced a private member's bill in the House of Commons on Thursday.
https://twitter.com/MarilynGladuSL/status/1491103096180981761
She said Bill C-228 is aimed at ensuring that companies that go broke will have to pay their workers the pension money they're entitled to.
"Businesses will have to table a report on the solvency of their fund, each year, to Parliament so that we can have transparency," said Gladu. "There would also be a mechanism provided to transfer money into the fund to make it solvent if it's not, or to get insurance on the insolvent portion until it can be made solvent."
Gladu said in the case of bankruptcy, pensions would be paid out in priority before big bonuses for executives and corporations.
She said there have been several examples of former companies that were unable to pay out their employees' pensions.
"Sadly there's a long list including Eaton's, Sears, Nortel, Algoma and Caterpillar, there has just been too many," she said. "People have worked their whole lives, they've paid into their pension funds and so they deserve to receive the benefit they agreed upon when they decided to work for those companies."
Gladu said there have been a few previous attempts to get a similar bill in place.
"The Bloc brought forward a bill in the last Parliament, the NDP in the previous one, and the Conservatives in the one before that. But, each of them had a contentious point to it. I've tried to take the parts from each of the bills that were agreed upon, in the hopes that I can do what I did with my palliative care bill and get unanimous consent from all parties to put this in place and fix this once and for all."
Bill C-228 has passed first reading, and will come back to the house in March for a second reading. The finance committee will then consider it, and send it back to the house for third reading.
If the bill makes it that far, it will be forwarded onto the Senate and the Governor General for final approval.
