House of Assembly
Newfoundland and Labrador

Private Member's Motion 
Wednesday, June 4, 2008

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MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for the District of Port de Grave.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

It gives me pleasure today to stand on this private member’s motion with regards to public sector pensioners, which has been seconded by my hon. Colleague for the District of Cartwright-L’Anse au Clair. Just for the record, Mr. Speaker, I will read the motion.

WHEREAS the Provincial Government retired pensioners have sought an increase in their pensions because increases in the cost of living have diminished their value and many pensioners live in dire financial circumstances; and

WHEREAS the Provincial Government had an established practice of granting a pension increase to coincide with or follow public sector pay raises, thereby creating a reasonable expectation that this would continue to be a feature of their pension entitlement; and

WHEREAS this practice was discontinued after 1989 due to the severe financial constraints at that time, thereby hurting all pensioners but especially those on low fixed incomes;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Assembly urges the government to consider the advisability of resuming the practice of matching increases for public service pensioners to wage increases for public sector employees.

Mr. Speaker, as I said, I just want to take a few moments on this. I am not going to belabour the issue, but there are a few comments I want to make. I know, as the evening progresses we will have hon. members on both sides standing, and no doubt the members on the government side will be telling us about what has been done this year and in previous years for the seniors. That is true, Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt there are many issues that have come up from time to time that will help those people; but, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the indexing of their pensions, it is another issue.

On May 1 we heard the Minister of Finance responding to some questions by the Leader of the Opposition with regard to issues that have been dealt with in reference to low-income tax benefits, doubling the seniors’ tax benefit, improving the drug program, home heating programs, and more or less, Mr. Speaker, putting money back into seniors’ pockets.

While members opposite were in Opposition, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, they travelled this Province preaching how they would stand shoulder to shoulder with those people in supporting indexing of their pensions. I say, what a change has occurred. Just a little stroll across this House and the issue has come to the point now where indexing has been placed on the back burner.

On April 30, the Premier of this Province made a statement that public sector pensioners would not be getting any indexing or any further benefits on their pensions in the foreseeable future under his mandate.

Mr. Speaker, I guess that has been disturbing to those people, because we hear so much about the reference to the lower income tax benefits and we know that many of those people, Mr. Speaker, the figures that we have seen, some of them are trying to survive on as little as $10,000 a year.

We talk about the funding we have put into the drug program, and I know there are three or four different phases of the drug program and it is very beneficial to many people, but I can assure you, I have people in my district who just cannot afford to get all the medications they need. Some of them are to the point now where doctors are giving them samples that they have come from time to time, and that is very unfortunate. I am not saying that is what government wants to happen, but that is the position that many people find themselves in.

We talked about the home heating program - a good program, Mr. Speaker, let me assure you - and there are more people this year availed of that than in the past, and that is all wonderful, but I can tell you, many seniors, many people who are on fixed incomes, find themselves in a very difficult position. I have had people call me over this past few months, not only in my district but other areas as well, saying: I do not have an invoice to send in so I can avail of those funds because I was unable, in the last two or three months, to be able to buy the fuel. I bought it last winter, and there is still some of it there.

I have been in homes, Mr. Speaker, where those people and seniors have been unable to turn on their heat because it was either, from time to time, buying a drop of oil to keep the house warm or buying food from one end of the month to the other, Mr. Speaker. That is very unfortunate. Those people have served this Province well, Mr. Speaker.

I know recently that seven different groups came together - they are called Pensioners’ Coalition 2008 - and those seven groups represent some 22,000 retirees. When you consider their family members, that figure jumps to about 60,000 people, Mr. Speaker, and their pensions have been frozen now for nineteen years.

I know this Administration has not been office for nineteen years, and I know it happened back in 1989, but that is immaterial, who was there. I think the time has come that those people have to be considered, and what better time to do it than now? We know that you cannot take every penny that the government has and just throw it to the wind. I think the issues that those people are asking for are legitimate, Mr. Speaker, and they include many different groups who have worked for this Province and for this government. We have the staff at Memorial University, penitentiary wardens, firefighters, police officers and teachers. I can assure you, from what they have in the paper, they were disappointed with the Budget – not disappointed with everything that is in the Budget, but the fact that they were not considered with the indexing of their pensions. The financial position that we find ourselves in today, I believe they thought, definitely, there was going to be something there for them. We also know that the various unions – I know NAPE has spoken out recently in favour of those people, because I guess many of them were members of that particular union.

Over a period of time – I know prior to the last election and since the last election - I had the, I suppose, distinct honour of meeting with those people; but, I am going to tell you, what took place in the meetings was something that I did not think I would encounter.

I remember meeting with them, up on the fifth floor, when they came in and explained to us what they are receiving now, what they could purchase for that amount of money back in 1989, and how they are left and what they can buy today, Mr. Speaker.

Some hon. colleagues here – I know the Member for St. John’s East, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi, and the Opposition Leader – we met with I think it was close to 800 of those people in Mundy Pond, and that is since the last election. When you hear the stories that those people had to put forward, I believed that, and I think they believed at the time, that something would come forward in the last Budget to help support them.

Mr. Speaker, I have read with great interest the provincial resolutions that were put forward by the Newfoundland and Labrador 50+ Federation, when they held their meeting back in 2007, and I believe they met with the Minister of Finance and presented their cases to him, and some of the issues that they had in their resolutions have been dealt with to some degree. Others have not, but the indexing of their pensions is one that - they feel today that something should be done.

We understand that the cost of living has increased since 1989 by 46 per cent. All we have to do, I guess, is think about it ourselves, if we were on a fixed income, knowing what the increase was over that period of time.

Mr. Speaker, we know, not only the price of gas, how it has gone up, but how it affects everything that those individuals have to deal with, whether it is when they go to buy their groceries, whether it is when they go to buy fuel to heat their homes, or even to buy their groceries, because we hear it on a daily basis, how things are increasing. These people, like I said, Mr. Speaker, have worked all their lives providing a service to the people of this Province.

I know one of the recommendations that they put forward at their convention, and I am sure the Minister of Finance is well aware of it, with regard to - I think it was resolution 14 - the retirement pensions’ increase, and explained very seriously how they are suffering on many issues and how they have cared, whether it is teachers caring for the children, or other individuals here in the Province, Mr. Speaker.

Hopefully, as this day progresses, I know members opposite will stand and talk about all the good things that have happened, and that is true, but I hope when they stand that they will be able to relate the stories, just like I related, because we all live in Newfoundland and Labrador. Each and every one of us has constituents, and I am sure we have received phone calls from them asking us to plea to government and to urge government to consider this.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to conclude my opening comments just on one comment that I read recently in The Telegram. I guess you cannot believe everything you hear or see or read in our local papers or in the media, but the article was written by Mr. Russell Wangersky, and he concluded by saying one thing in that – his quote – he was referring to the relationship and how we feel about the deal that was promised us from Ottawa. In order words, in his article he is saying: A deal is a deal.

Those people, yes, they signed off on a deal when their unions agreed with what they would expect from their pensions, but he went on to say: How can you campaign on the grounds that unfair deals should be changed while refusing to change them yourselves?

In other words, what he is saying, Mr. Speaker, is that those people are in our Province, they are the people who have carried the burden of our residents for many years in providing the service, and what they are saying is: Yes, we know we are receiving what we agreed to at that time, but the time has come when that deal should be broken; it should be reconsidered.

Hopefully, as the evening goes on, Mr. Speaker, I will take my place and just listen to fellow colleagues as they make their presentations, and return later on to close debate.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER (Collins): The hon. the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SKINNER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be able to stand today and speak to this motion, and I am glad that the hon. member opposite brought the resolution forward to give us an opportunity to bring forward some of the initiatives that have taken place to try and assist, as the motion refers to, provincial government retired pensioners who have seen the value of their pensions diminish in time. Some, in fact, do live in some dire circumstances. I am sure every member in this House could tell the story.

I have visited many seniors, many public service pensioners, who are having difficulty. A lot of them are struggling. It is an opportunity for us, as members, to be able to get up and speak to what it is that we are doing.

Make no mistake, Mr. Speaker, I do not care what side of the House you are on, this issue is one that every member of this House takes seriously and wishes to be able to do something to try and assist.

In terms of the public service pensioners, in terms of this government, we understand the difficulties that public service pensioners are experiencing. They are a smaller sub-set of the bigger population of seniors who I receive e-mails and calls and letters from every day. I go to visit them every day, who are talking to me about the challenges they face, in particular in the winter months when the cost of heating is something that is an onerous burden on them, a burden that they have to bear. I have been to homes where people tell me that they have to choose between turning on the heat or maybe feeding themselves, putting some food on the table, or maybe their car is broke down in the driveway, their only means of transportation. That vehicle is very important, not just as a means of transportation, but it is a means of social inclusion for them. It allows them to get out and go to the grocery stores, to go do a bit of shopping, to go see their physicians, to go see their family and friends, and it is broke down in the driveway, they do not have the funds to be able to fix it or to make it work.

Mr. Speaker, this government, I think, and all members in this House understand the challenges that public service pensioners are facing, but, as I said before, I believe we placed that in the context of they are a smaller subset of a larger group of older adults in this Province who are experiencing similar challenges. Our approach as a government has been to try and address the larger group, and by addressing that larger group the subset of public service pensioners will also feel some benefit from some of the initiatives that we have brought forward.

We understand that the public service pensioners have had an employer sponsored pension plan that they made contributions to. We understand that they thought there would be money there at the end of the day to be able to live a reasonable standard of life, but those decisions were made in some cases, Mr. Speaker, thirty or thirty-five years ago. It is hard to project what your needs are going to be and it is hard to project what your needs will be in five years let alone thirty-five or twenty-five years. We understand the quandary that people find themselves in, but we as a government, I guess, took a couple of approaches.

I was at some of those meetings that the hon. member referred to. I wanted to when I was campaigning - when I was originally elected as a new MHA I went to some of those meetings to hear the concerns of the public service pensioners. It was an issue that I felt I had to educate myself about, so I went and listened to a lot of those stories and what a lot of the people had to say. The first thing I heard, and the thing that struck me most, was, first of all those pension plans were in dire straits. Those pension plans were in a position where they may not be able to provide a pension to the people who rightly and who in good faith contributed to a pension plan that should be able to pay benefits to them once they retired. That message rang through to me loud and clear.

One of the first things our government did when we took office, when we had the privilege of being elected by the people of the Province, was we looked at those pension plans in terms of trying to put them on a bit more of a firm footing. I do not remember specifically which one, I think it was the Teacher’s Pension Plan; it was only funded to the tune of 26 per cent, Mr. Speaker. We as a government had to make sure that we addressed that because if we did not the projection showed in 2003 when we took office that that particular public pension plan would run dry by 2012, four short years from now; would not be able to meet its obligations. Not only would the people who receive a pension from that pension plan be complaining about the fact that they were receiving too little to live on, there would actually be nothing left in the plan to be able to be funded out. This government had to take some drastic, serious action, and we did that. We put about $4 billion in total into the pension plans to make sure that they were given a more solid financial footing. In actual fact, we raised the level of funding from around 26 per cent up to about 80 per cent for these pension plans.

We further, in 2007, put almost $1 billion, $982 million, almost $1 billion, with a b, into the Public Service Pension Plan to raise it up. It again was around 28 per cent or 30 per cent funded and we had to make sure that the benefit was there for people on a go-forward basis.

There were things that needed to be addressed, no doubt, in terms of the Public Service Pension Plan. The immediate need as we saw it and as I saw it and as I heard it in some of the meetings I attended and as I heard it from some of the people I spoke to, was, make sure you sure up that pension plan. Funds were taken from that years ago - and we all know the story, I will not beat it to death - but funds were taken from that years ago by previous administrations to pay for infrastructure. They paid for hospitals, they paid for schools and they paid for roadwork. That money that people were putting away for their pensions was being used for purposes other than what it was intended for and that had to stop, and it has stopped.

We had an obligation as a government to address that liability. The first thing we did was address that liability by making sure that we put enough money into the pension plan to make sure that it was on firm footing so that the continuation of benefits was there, people would not have to go to sleep at night wondering, will my benefits run out in 2012, will I wake up one morning and be told by the provincial government there is no more pension money for you. We made sure that did not happen. That was the first thing that was done by this government, Mr. Speaker. We wanted to make sure that the unfunded liability was taken care of.

The second point that was made by this government, when we brought the unfunded liability up to the point where it needed to be, when we basically re-injected the funds that had been taken out - and that was done by an actuary. There was a calculation done and an assessment made as to how much money needed to be put into that plan. It was not just the amount that was taken out. It was the money that was taken out plus the estimation as to what the benefits would have been had the money been left in the plan. There was an evaluation done by a professional called an actuary who did that and said, here is the amount of money you have to put in. The amount of money that was taken out was put in as well as an allowance for how much money the plan would have made over the years. That was done and we are now about, as I understand it, 80 per cent, 82 per cent, funded in terms of those pension plans.

The second point that this government made, Mr. Speaker, was that we would not be able to look at any increases in the pension plans until they were able to fund it which meant that the plans had to be 100 per cent funded. We are moving towards that. We are hoping that we will be able to get there sooner rather than later, but there may be a day when we see that we will be able to do something in terms of increasing pension benefits when the pension plan allows for it. That is how you would normally do this. That is the normal process and the normal practice that will be followed, that you would take the extra benefits from the plan to be able to provide more benefits to those recipients of the plan. At some point, we hope that may be able to happen.

Mr. Speaker, I only have a short period of time to speak so I want to go back to the point I was making earlier about the public service pensioners being a subset of a larger group of people in this Province. One of the things that this government has been trying to do is trying to make sure that the benefits we have, the revenues that we have as a government, are used for the benefit of the most people possible. We have our low income drug program. I believe that it is over 90,000 people now who have been affected by that. Our home heating program, we have raised threshold on those. There are a whole bunch of initiatives that I could talk about in more detail but we have tried to make sure that we cover or encompass as many people as possible in the Province. It is not the will of this government, nor do we feel it is the right move to make, to go and target the Public Service pensioners in terms of trying to do something extra for them. We feel it is something that should be done for all seniors in the Province.

What we have looked at doing is, we have looked at the kinds of things that people are talking to us about. Just as an example, taxes were something I heard a lot about when I went around. People talked to me about taxes. Well, we have brought in the low income tax reduction measure, we have now raised the threshold level, so seniors who are receiving pensions, who are receiving $10,000, $12,000, $14,000 and $15,000 in pension money, who were paying taxes on that, we have now been able to make adjustments to our taxes so that they no longer have to pay taxes on that amount of money. We have done it for all seniors. We have not done it just for Public Service pensioners.

There are seniors out there, a great number of them, who are not in receipt of pensions, but they are the individuals who are paying into the revenues of government through our tax system and we feel they should receive some of the relief and some of the benefit of us using our tax money. By using this low income tax measure for all seniors, those that are Public Service pensioners are also positively affected by that.

As well, Mr. Speaker, we look at the home heating rebate. I can tell you, I have many, I would go so far as to say hundreds, of constituents in my district who I have spoken to who have benefited from the home heating rebate. I have personally delivered dozens of applications to people who asked if I would be able to drop it off and help them with their application. There have been hundreds, thousands across the Province. I do not know the number. When the Minister of Finance gets up, maybe he will give us more detail. I would speculate there are many thousands of people who have been helped by the home heating rebate.

A lot of those people who I have delivered these forms to are seniors living in their own home. Some of them are Public Service pensioners. We have done a number of things with the home heating rebate to make it beneficial for all seniors, and by making it beneficial for all seniors we have made it beneficial for the Public Service pensioners as well, because they are a subset of that senior group. We have increased the threshold in terms of the income threshold and we have increased the amount of money that has been paid out. You now can earn higher levels of income and be eligible for the home heating rebate. We have now made sure that the amount we give out is a higher amount, so it is on a graduated scale. It can be as little as zero if you are over the income threshold; it can go up to $400. We have also expanded the types of fuel. It is no longer just oil, but it is oil, it is electricity, it is propane and it is wood sources. There are a variety of sources that are being used.

The point I am making, Mr. Speaker, is that by addressing all of our senior population with some of these positive initiatives, which allow seniors to keep more money in their pockets - and ultimately that is what we are trying to do, we are trying to keep more money in people’s pockets. We are trying to ease the financial burdens that they have faced. What has happened, Mr. Speaker, is that by addressing the broader group of seniors in the Province, we have, in fact, done some things for the subset of pensioners in the Province.

I want to talk a little bit about the Provincial Home Repair Program, which comes underneath my ministry as well. We have a higher percentage of people in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador than any other Province of Canada who own their own homes. A lot of the people I deal with through the Provincial Home Repair Program own their own homes, obviously, and they to reside in rural areas. The majority of people tend to reside in rural areas. A lot of them are on fixed incomes. Some of them are pensioners, some of them are not pensioners, but they have fixed incomes. They tend to have lower levels of incomes.

The Provincial Home Repair Program, Mr. Speaker, allows people to be able to fix up their homes, to stay there, to stay in the home where they raised their family. Their friends are there, all of their memories, all of the community work that they have done, their church, the places where they socialize, the Lions Club, the Kinsmen, whatever it may be, all of that is where their home is. That is why they want to stay in their home. They do not want to have to go somewhere else.

People now, who have homes that are aging and have incomes that are fixed or incomes that may be declining, are given some benefit through the Provincial Home Repair Program. Up to $5,000 can be given without any payback required by the person receiving it, under certain circumstances, to do work on their home. It might mean electrical upgrades to install heating systems, in might mean roof repairs so you stop leaks, it might mean windows and doors and those kinds of things, so you do not have the drafts that normally would come and cause people to have to put up their thermostats. There are all kinds of things that can be done there, Mr. Speaker, with that $5,000. It does not have to be paid back. You can actually get more than $5,000 to do that kind of work, if you want to enter into a loan arrangement where on everything over $5,000 you are given a very low interest rate.

Those kinds of initiatives that I have touched on are initiatives that are available for all seniors. The approach this government has taken is that by bringing in initiatives that raise it up for all seniors, we will, in effect, raise it up for the Public Service pensioners. We understand the difficulties that they are facing, we understand the challenges that they are facing, but we feel that we can address their challenges and their difficulties by making sure we do it for all seniors in the Province.

That is the approach we have taken, Mr. Speaker. We believe it is working, we will show that it is working in future budgets, and I thank you for your time.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Leader of the Opposition.

MS JONES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I am certainly pleased to rise and to speak in the debate today, on the motion that was put forward by my colleague, the Member for -

AN HON. MEMBER: Port de Grave.

MS JONES: Port de Grave.

There are so many of us over here, Mr. Speaker, we tend to lose track.

Certainly, the motion put forward by the Member for Port de Grave, Mr. Speaker, is a very important motion that actually impacts well over 20,000 people in our Province today.

Mr. Speaker, this is not an issue that has been taken lightly and we have never suggested that it has been taken lightly by any particular government or administration, but it is also an issue that needs to be elevated in the minds of those people who make decisions within our Province. The reality is, that people today who are public sector pensioners are living on incomes that are far less, Mr. Speaker, far less than they ever intended for them to live on in their retirement after giving service to the people of this Province for so many years.

We will hear, I am sure today, as government continues to speak to the motion, about programs like we just did from the minister opposite that are in place to help offset the cost of living to seniors in our Province, and we have never disputed that. We have never disputed the need to have home heating rebates, to have subsidization of drug programs, to be able to provide seniors’ benefits to those in the Province who qualify, and we are certainly not advocating today that any of that should change.

Mr. Speaker, do not skew the issue, because the issue that we are talking about today has to do with a decade after decade old problem in this Province that has gone unattended to and unfunded appropriately. Mr. Speaker, that is not just a reflection on the government opposite but a reflection on governments going back to 1989 with the exception, I guess, of 2002 when there was a modest increase in indexing provided for at 1.2 per cent at that particular time. Mr. Speaker, I will be the first to recognize that the current rate of inflation at that time was still at 1.9 per cent, so even the indexing in 2002 at the 1.2 per cent fell short of what the actual inflation rate was in the Province at that particular time.

Mr. Speaker, we wanted to table this particular motion in the House of Assembly because we feel that it should be on the radar of government to be dealt with. We feel that the money that is available in the provincial coffers today is able to adequately address this problem like it has not been able to be addressed in the past.

For example, Mr. Speaker, when this program was created in 1965 it was done at a time when inflationary measures were not the kind of phrases and terminology that were being built into the contracts of that time. In fact, it was not until the 1970s, until Trudeau came to government nationally, that we started talking about escalation clauses in contracts and inflationary clauses in contracts. When these pension plans were set up, from the very beginning, they did not build in those measures. When governments say, through the years, and continue to say today, the government opposite, that they did not pay for any indexing program so therefore they should not get one, really, Mr. Speaker, if you look at the contracts and the time frame in which they were negotiated, inflationary language in those contracts was unheard of at that particular time. This is something that developed over time.

Mr. Speaker, in 1989 they did receive a 2.5 per cent increase. I did not go back to look up what the current rate of inflation was at that time but it was probably on par with what the inflation rate was, so it was bringing them to the current standard of living in that particular year. Again, as I said, in 2002 there was a 1.2 per cent indexing that was granted; but, Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada themselves estimate that the cost of living has risen over the past eighteen years by 48 per cent, and this has had a detrimental effect on seniors all across the country, not just in our Province.

Mr. Speaker, while we look at broad-ranging programs that affect seniors and support their initiatives we deal with a specific case, and that is the pensioners of the provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, who they have served with for twenty-five and thirty-five years, Mr. Speaker, making this government their former employer and therefore the only place that they can turn to look for some kind of redress on their pensions over that period of time.

Mr. Speaker, we have listened to what the public pensioners have said. We have listened to their president, Mr. Langdon, who talked about how the dollar for pensioners has eroded over the years. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I think at one point he said that what most pensioners receive today is only providing for 50 per cent of the cost of living in today’s standards as to what it was when they actually accepted those pensions and took their exists from government.

Mr. Speaker, this is the reason that we have wanted to elevate the issue. We feel that government is in a position to address it. The minister has informed me that for every 1 per cent that you would give in an indexing increase in the pension plan it would cost the government about $40 million a year annually. Yesterday, I did not have the actual numbers to look at what the full cost might be –

AN HON. MEMBER: Forever (inaudible).

MS JONES: Forever. Oh, 1 per cent is $40 million forever.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MS JONES: Okay.

So, let me correct that, Mr. Speaker, because it gets better. It sounds better, too, I say to the minister. It sounds better, and maybe we should be advocating for more, but anyway the 1 per cent means it will be a $40 million cost to the government over the course of time to index the pensions for the retired public service employees.

If you look at that cost, which would be $40 million, and then you look at what it would take to bring them up - and we are not advocating that government should be going out now and giving a 48 per cent increase to public pensioners. What we are saying is that you are in a fiscal position to be able to address this problem like governments before you have not been able to.

For example, when the minister brought down the Budget this year he has already forecast a surplus for next year - a surplus, at that time, which would have exceeded over $500 million. That was based on the oil prices per barrel at $87. Mr. Speaker, if you look at where the price of oil has gone per barrel since March, or April, when the minister introduced the Budget, it has climbed to $120 a barrel. It may even have exceeded that on occasion, but it has climbed that high. That would indicate to us automatically that with the amount of production that is out there, with the price at the level that it is, not forecasting to take a dip any time soon, that the government’s own numbers, in forecasting a surplus for the next fiscal year, are way low. Instead of looking like $500 million, Mr. Speaker, at the rate we are going now, it will again be a surplus of well over a billion dollars.

We know that when governments make decisions to invest money, especially in programs and in those kinds of indexing and wage increases, that they have to be able to budget for it and sustain it over a long period of time. We certainly understand that. In that understanding, we also realize that there is still room for government to move on doing something for public sector pensioners. We are asking today that it be put on the radar of government, that you give it strong consideration, and you look at what needs to happen here to bring them in line with a more reasonable rate of return as a reward for their service to government than they are actually getting.

Do not bog it down with terms of contracts, because those arguments do not hold weight in today’s society. We can dig out many contracts that have been signed by governments in the past that did not build in inflationary clauses or escalator clauses that today we would never dream of negotiating without having that kind of terminology into it.

Mr. Speaker, the public sector pensioners have formed a coalition in the Province, actually formed it within the last month, and it does involve the Public Service Pensioners’ Association, the Retired Teachers’ Association, the Memorial University of Newfoundland Pensioners’ Association, the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Association, the St. John’s Fire Fighters Retirees’ Association, the NAPE local and the Retired Penitentiary Warders. So, Mr. Speaker, they have already collectively formed a group as a coalition, not necessarily to take on the government but to work with government, to work effectively with government so that you understand the issues that they are faced with and the circumstances that they are faced with, things like my hon. colleague from Port de Grave already talked about, the hardship that many of these people face every day in their lives because they have insufficient amount of monies as a pension to be able to live on.

Mr. Speaker, the other piece to this is that every single year we are not seeing things go down; we are seeing things go up – everything, from the medical benefits that they receive, which we have seen increases in the premiums that we pay for medical benefits in the Province, so have they. They have seen increases in everything from food products, and every day we are identifying a new product because of the global impact of war around the world. It impacts things like oil prices and food prices, and all the rest of it, and these things are felt right at home, by people like ourselves and people like our pensioners who have to pay more money.

Mr. Speaker, we feel that there is not a need for government to continue to belabour this or provide a rationale for not doing it. We think that the Budget surpluses themselves and the fiscal position of the Province speak to its ability to be able to address the problem, and this particular coalition wants to work with government to ensure that these problems are addressed. They do not want to accept no as an answer, but rather they want to work to achieve a compromise that at the end of the day will help relieve the financial burdens that many of them have been faced with.

Mr. Speaker, the other issue that needs to be dealt with is the issue of how the federal government claws back pension benefits as well; because, once these individuals qualify for Canada Pension benefits they tend to enter into a phase whereby the federal government claws back a certain amount of their money.

I have not really been able to get into the discussions around that aspect of it, to understand it more fully, but I am sure that the minister would have probably already provided some details with regard to that particular issue but it is one that I have received a number of e-mails on, in terms of how the percentage rate works and how the clawback works. Maybe there is something that can be done to address that particular issue as well that would be able to probably lessen the burden, at least, on some of the people who receive this benefit, and how they are impacted.

Mr. Speaker, I know that many of the people who are going to talk today are going to say that this is an issue that other governments could have addressed and did not address. The reality is that many other governments in the past were not in a fiscal position to address it. Even those that were not necessarily in a fiscal position tried their best to address it, such as the government of 2002, when they looked at indexing at 1.2 per cent for pensioners at that time. As small as it was, it was a reflection and an understanding that there was a problem and it was a problem that should be dealt with within the fiscal realities of any government to deal with them.

This government does have the ability to be able to address the problem, to be able to bring some relief to the 20,000-odd public sector pensioners in this Province, Mr. Speaker, who feel that they should be considered for indexing, especially when you look at the rate of inflation and you look at how the cost of living has risen in the Province over the last eighteen years.

Mr. Speaker, we certainly hope that government will not just provide excuses or talk about universal programs that affect seniors, but we would like to know directly, as the employer and the former employer of public sector pensioners in this Province, when you are going to put them on the radar, when you are going to consider giving them something substantial in terms of indexing at a time when the Province can well afford to be able to do so.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. T. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, thank you.

It is a pleasure to stand here today to take part in this debate.

I can assure the people of this Province that the Williams’ government is certainly cognizant of the adverse effects that the rising energy prices have on the people of this Province, especially those who are on fixed incomes, especially those who are on low incomes, and especially our seniors. I can assure you that it is something we take very, very seriously, and I can assure you that it is something that I know the Premier and all members of this government and I am sure all members of this House watch very, very carefully.

We want to help our seniors. I do not think there is any group in the Province that all of us would like to help and like to show respect to, than our seniors, but we have an obligation to help all of our seniors. That is why the Williams’ government has taken a number of initiatives to ensure that all of our seniors are helped, initiatives that will put money in people’s pockets.

Realistically, Mr. Speaker, I think if you look at the initiatives that the Williams’ government has put in place since 2003, and especially in this year’s Budget and last year’s Budget, the increases in those benefits that are going to all seniors certainly would be larger than a 2 per cent or 3 per cent ad hoc increase in the pension benefits that our retired civil servants do have.

Mr. Speaker, the position of the government is that we have to help all seniors, and that will include our retired civil servants but not just our retired civil servants. Indeed, it is all seniors, because that is the way to be fair and that is the way to be equitable.

Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that, based on the latest figures we have for the year 2006, there were 72,400 seniors over sixty-five who filed income tax returns. That would include people without income, but who would file returns to access government benefits. Of those 72,000 seniors, Mr. Speaker, 46,000 of them did not have an employer sponsored pension. These are people who rely entirely on the benefits they receive from Ottawa, and the benefits they might receive from the province government. Of the approximately 26,000 who do, those over sixty-five, 10,000 are public sector pensioners, and the 46,000 who had no employee sponsored pension would have an average income of about $15,000.

Mr. Speaker, it might be helpful for the purposes of this debate – and I commend the Member for Port de Grave for raising this in the House, because it is important that we all discuss this, and I know that all MHAs, as we go around our districts in the summer, will run into retired civil servants who will want to discuss these issues with us – it is important to note that, of the public sector retirees, the average pension income is $16,700. This is in the public sector pension plan. For those who have served longer, because obviously a public service pension will increase the longer you have worked and the greater contributions you have made over time, the retiree with twenty-five years of service would have a $24,000 pension, and a retiree with thirty years of service would have $26,300 pension.

Obviously, the longer you contribute to the plan the bigger the pension would be. Obviously, someone who would retire at fifty-five, who would retire early, would not have as large a pension as someone who would stay and retire at sixty or sixty-five.

With the Teachers’ Pension Plan it is higher; the average is $30,000. For those who stay for twenty-five plus years the average would be $32,200, and for those of thirty years the average would be $34,000.

Mr. Speaker, it is said by many that the first pillar of retirement, the one we consider, are the benefits that are provided to all senior citizens by the Government of Canada. That is the first pillar of retirement, and that would include, of course, Old Age Security, it would include the Guaranteed Income Supplement.

The Old Age Security, I understand, this year is about $6,000. It is payable to everyone over sixty-five. The Guaranteed Income Supplement, I am advised, is about $7,500. Someone who does not have a pension other than the OAS and the GIS would have, in total, an income of $13,500 a year. Those benefits are subject to full indexing every quarter and, in addition, there are some supplemental benefits such as a spouse allowance for a spouse who is sixty to sixty-four, whose husband or whose wife is qualified for both the OAS and the GIS. There is also a survivor’s allowance for someone who may have lost their spouse, someone who is sixty to sixty-four.

In addition, the next pillar would be the Canada Pension Plan, which is a plan that everyone can contribute to, who is employed in this country. The maximum benefit under the Canada Pension Plan is $10,500. Obviously, the amount that one would receive or qualify for would be based on how much you have contributed and how long you have contributed, because that is the way pensions work. The more you contribute and the longer period of time you contribute is so important. I know many of us, when you talk about retiring and you look at retiring, the experts tell you that the earlier you start contributing and the longer you contribute will add, in a major way, to the amount of retirement benefits that you receive.

Mr. Speaker, the next pillar would be what I will call employer sponsored pension plans. For those who do not have those, they would be Registered Retirement Savings Plans. Those who have had the advantage of being a member of a defined benefit pension plan, it is a plan where the benefits are certainly set out. Whereas, in a defined contribution pension plan, or a money purchase pension plan, you do not know what your pension is going to be. You are going to contribute to the plan, your employer is going to match those contributions, and how well you do depends on how smart you are in choosing the investment manager that is going to manage those funds.

At the end of the time, when you are ready to retire, you get a lump sum of money, and then you use that to buy a life annuity or to buy a RRIF, and it is what it is, but in a defined benefit pension plan, the benefits are set out, the benefits are known. While you are an employee, you know what the benefits are going to be, because there is a formula that is used, and of course it depends on what your contributions are, and it depends on how long you have been a member. The benefits of the plan are, in fact, known at that time.

Under the plan that the retired pensioners have, under the defined benefit plan of this Province, indexing was not part of the plan. When the benefits are set out, what would happen, an actuary is hired and the actuary would look at the benefits and then cost those benefits, and then the contributions to the plan would, of course, be based on what the actuary says. If indexing was to be part of the plan, then obviously, that would have been costed as well, and the employees and the employer would make the contributions.

Indexing is expensive, full indexing is very expensive, but that was not part of the pension plan. Therefore, the contributions were not made. Of course, what is happening now is that the benefits that our employees are receiving are the benefits that were set out in the plan. The benefits that our retirees are receiving are, in fact, the benefits that their contributions are paying for, even though the plan certainly has an unfunded pension liability.

The plan is not funded enough to pay the benefits that are actually being paid out, and I think that is why when the inquiry was set up in 1989 or 1990 – I think it was called the Cummings Inquiry – the recommendation was that there should not be any more ad hoc increases, that there should not be any more until the benefits that are being paid out now are fully funded, and that if any enhancements were to be made in the future to those benefits, that those enhancements will be fully funded as well.

Mr. Speaker, when the Williams government took office in 2000 –

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member that on a number of occasions now he has referred to the government by using the name of the Premier and that is not appropriate in debate, so I would ask him to refrain from doing that.

MR. T. MARSHALL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

When the present Premier and his government took office, I remember reading in the Auditor General’s report that there was an unfunded liability of about $4 billion, and I remember thinking, will any government be able to deal with that, ever get to that, to correct that problem. The teachers’ pension was only funded to the tune of 26 per cent. It was forecast to go bankrupt in 2012. Government worked very hard to deal with this, and after the Premier negotiated the $2 billion from Ottawa, from Prime Minister Martin, then the government had to decide what should we do with this $2 billion? There were many people who wanted that $2 billion into programs that they thought were important. The Premier said, no, we are putting the money, the entire amount of money, into the pension plan because we have to secure the pension plans for the future and for the benefit of our retirees. That was done and in addition to that, in addition to the $2 million going into the – that is $2 billion, I should say, going into the teachers’ plan, there was just under another $1 billion that went into the public service sector plan to get those plans up to, I think it was around 86 per cent funded, so that they would be secure for the future. That was done. Now, they have fallen back a bit because there were bad investment results last year. I think the average now is about 77 per cent.

Now you have $3 billion in the funds, in the plan, that hopefully as investments improve will grow, so that hopefully some day those plans will be fully funded, even go into surplus and out of that surplus enhancements can be paid to our pensioners. We certainly look forward to that day.

Mr. Speaker, the motion is that government consider the advisability of resuming the practice of matching increases for public services pensioners to wage increases. Now, that is the ad hoc increases which the commission that was set up by the Wells government in 1999 rejected. The commission recommended that this ad hoc indexing be discontinued and that any formal indexing should be properly funded by both the employees and the employers through contribution increases.

Mr. Speaker, an ad hoc increase of 1 per cent would increase the plan liabilities by $40 million. An ad hoc increase of 8 per cent would obviously increase the unfunded pension liabilities of $320. So, these increases in the deficit of the plan, or in what is called the unfunded liability of the plan or the debt of the plan, would totally undermine the efforts that the government, under the Premier, the efforts that put money into the plans to reduce the unfunded pension liability. This recommendation would ask us to go back to increase the unfunded liability which really would undermine the efforts that have taken place not only by this government but there were also payments made by previous governments into the fund.

In spite of the efforts made by former governments, in spite of the efforts made by this government, in spite of the $3 billion invested into the pension plans, the plans are still under funded to the tune of about $2 billion. I know the Leader of the Opposition talked about indexation, the cost of full indexing of all employees from the date of retirement would require the contribution increases to increase by 1.55 per cent for the Public Service Pension Plan and 2.35 per cent for the Teachers’ Pension Plan, and in addition, the total unfunded liabilities would increase by $1.8 billion.

Now, this increase in unfunded liability for these massive amounts would not be as high if the indexing was just from age sixty-five. It would be more just under three-quarters of a billion dollars as opposed to $1.1 billion. The increase in these unfunded liabilities would have to be paid for by all taxpayers, including seniors who are not receiving a pension and including workers who are not members of the pension plan. It would be unfair to use the taxes of all of our citizens just to benefit one group of seniors. Surely, if we are going to protect our seniors we have to protect all of our seniors, including our civil servants, but not just our civil servants. This is the position that government is going to take. If government is going to use tax dollars to help senior citizens, then we believe that all senior citizens must benefit.

Mr. Speaker, we have, as I said earlier, brought about a number of initiatives. I met with retired teachers and I met with retired public servants and they have given me their advice as to things that we should do to help them cope with the rising cost of living. We increased the threshold for the Seniors’ Benefit. We pay a Seniors’ Benefit each October. Fourteen thousand seniors received that benefit who were not getting it before last year. This year we doubled the benefit from about $400 to $800, just under those amounts. There are 31,500 people who were not getting those benefits before who are going to get a cheque of just under $800 since October.

We also eliminated - and this was the advice from the Retired Teachers’ Association - the 15 per cent tax on insurance. We made amendments to the low income tax reduction which eliminated 20,000 people from the provincial tax rolls. We allowed seniors, starting in 2007, to split their pension income resulting in tax savings. We eliminated the 15 per cent on insurance. We enhanced the Home Heating Rebate from $100 to $300, from giving the benefit to 11,000 people to giving the benefit to in excess of 75,000 people this year. All of this puts money back into people’s pockets.

Last year we had the largest tax cut in the history of the Province, $160 million in reduction in fees and taxes; this year, a further $178 million. It is amazing that this year the people of this Province are paying $340 million less in taxes and fees than they did two years ago. That is something that should be applauded and celebrated in this Province. We have reduced motor vehicle registration fees. Retired teachers told me that is something we should do, and we did it in this Budget.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. minister that his speaking time has expired.

MR. T. MARSHALL: Thank you, if I might have leave just to warp up?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the member by leave.

MR. T. MARSHALL: Mr. Speaker, I could be here for another hour, going through the list of the things we do.

I am looking at the lower rental rate for senior tenants that the Minister of Human Resources mentioned, the $6 million - the $24 million over six years, to more than double the funding to the Provincial Home Repair Program - I always call that the RRAP program - and that will eliminate the housing list.

I know the hon. Member for Port au Port told me about $7,500 going to seniors who were disabled, to help them to put ramps and lifts in their homes; $27.5 million for the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing’s Modernization and Improvement Program.

When I went door to door, Mr. Speaker, in the first campaign, when I first entered public life, I ran into a number of widows, in particular, in the age group between fifty-five and sixty-four, who were concerned about the cost of heat and the cost of drugs. They said to me: Which do we pay, the heat or the drugs?

That is why we brought in - we expanded the new drug program. That, I think, we are more proud of, something that the Premier did, than any other program: to provide the drug card to 97,000 people, to make sure that no one has to pay more than 4 per cent or 5 per cent of their income on drugs. I am extremely proud of that. At the same time, we took that home heating program, to deal with the heat aspect, and took it from $100 for 11,000 people to $300 for over 75,000, and $400 in Coastal Labrador.

Mr. Speaker, we will continue to be cognizant of the costs that our seniors are facing, and as our financial position continues to improve and we can do more, we will have more initiatives, we will continue to bring forward initiatives that will help our seniors cope with the rising cost of living, and we look forward to that, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Signal Hill–Quidi Vidi.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

I am very pleased today to be able to stand and speak to this motion put forward by the Member for Port de Grave, and I am very glad that the member put this motion on the Table and is giving us, because of that, an opportunity to speak to the needs of the pensioners.

We are dealing with a special group of people. We are dealing with the public service pensioners and the motion, as I read it from when the notice was given, is that the House of Assembly urges the government to resume the practice of matching increases for public service pensioners to wage increases for public sector employees.

I am struck by what I have heard a couple of the ministers say today, and when I went back over Hansard and looked at answers to when I had raised similar questions in the House to a former Finance Minister, I am struck by the commonality of one of the things that they are saying. I guess it is the position of the government, so they are all saying it. I am not sure that the ministers today used this term - but it was, I think, and when I read Hansard it was used - but the concept was still the same: that the pensioners are a subset of the group of seniors in our Province and, while they may have a particular issue, the large group of seniors is the group that government has to be responsible for, and they are going to be taking care of that large group and not treating a subset of that group differently.

That is what I would like to speak to first, because when we are talking about the public pensioners we are talking about a group of people who are in a very particular situation. They worked for government, directly or indirectly. They were public service sector workers. From that end, they had a system that they were part of, a financial system that they were part of, and part of that was the pension system.

As the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment said, we do not want to beat to death the history of the pension plan, but going right back to 1965 when it first started, and for about the first fifteen years of that plan, it wasn’t only that government took from it; government did not even pay into it initially, although that was the initial agreement. It should have been paid into; the funds should have been built up and invested. We know none of that happened. I do not want to go back over that but I do need to mention it to get at the point that I want to get at, that the pension plan was part of the expectation of public service workers. Yes, as pensioners they are seniors, but because of the particular situation they were in there may be things that need to be done for them in justice because of their context of having been public service sector workers.

What we have here, and we have reference to it over and over, is that when the plans were put in place they were not indexed. That was the situation; that was it. That is what happened and we accept it.

What I hear the pensioners saying back to us - and we have all met with the pensioners. Ministers have met with the pensioners from the various sectors or divisions of the public service sector. The Official Opposition have met with them. I have met with them. We have all met with them, and I think I have had at least five or six meetings with different groups of public service sector pensioners since I first came to this House in 2006. So in less than two years I have had, I think, about six meetings with different groups, some groups more than once.

In spite of everything that the Minister of Finance has said, what they are still saying, to me anyway, and I see communication from them that comes not just to me but to all of the people I have just mentioned - in whatever roles we all find ourselves, we are all getting the same communication - they are telling us that they are not ready to accept the situation.

They understand the situation. They understand that decisions were made back at a time when the reality of today was not even thought about. They understand that, but what they are saying is that government has a moral responsibility to look at their situation and to look at their request for indexing of the pensions. That is what I stand behind. That is where I support them. I think government does have a moral responsibility.

One of the communications that I have recently had, and I know that at least one minister has received this, is very interesting, because what the pensioner who sent this to me, and also sent to one of the ministers as well as to the Leader of the Official Opposition, what this pensioner does - and I understand from this pensioner that this is not an original thought on his part; a group of them, I think, have come up with this analogy - they look at the analogy of the Upper Churchill deal. Now, this is not coming from me; this is coming from a group of pensioners. What they are saying is that the Upper Churchill deal was a deal made when it was made, and we recognize now that it certainly was not a deal that was good for Newfoundland and Labrador. We continue to think that we should be able to convince the other partner in that deal, the Quebec Government, that it should do the right thing. We have had that said. We have had it said by government. We have had it said by many people in this Province. You would think that even on a moral basis Quebec would say: Let’s renegotiate before the end of the deal. We know Quebec has never seen it that way. We have criticized them for it and we know that we are going to have to wait until the end of that contract before any changes are going to be made.

What these pensioners are saying, that just as the Premier would say it is only moral to take another look at a fairer deal with regard to the Upper Churchill, it is moral to look back at when the contract was put in place, when the agreements were made about the public service sector pensions and to say that was not right, we have to make a change, that we owe a responsibility.

What I am saying is, recognizing the particular rights and needs of the public service sector and treating them justly, yes, it is dealing with them as a particular group of people, but it is a particular group of people who had a particular situation. They had a pension plan. A senior who does not have a pension plan, and may be living in the same situation of poverty as a pensioner, also has to have his or her needs met, and government has to find a way to meet those needs also. They were never part of a pension plan, so doing it through indexing of a pension plan is not going to work for them. Government has to meet their needs in another way, but meeting the needs of the pensioners through their pension plan, through indexing, is just absolutely logical.

If we remember, what is being asked for in the motion that is put on the floor today by the Member for Port de Grave is to resume the practice of matching increases for public service pensioners to the wage increases for the public sector employees. That used to happen. That used to happen actually under the Smallwood government, where every time there was – generally, it was more or less parallel - whenever there was an increase in the wages of the public sector employees there was an increase in the pensioners income. It seemed very logical. I think that is very just, actually. It makes all kinds of sense. What this is saying is, let’s get back into that practice.

As a worker, they had an expectation of being able to negotiate and being able to improve their lot whenever they had a new collective agreement. Why is it that all of a sudden, when you become a pensioner, that is taken away from you? Expenses are the same, expenses do not go away. As a matter of fact, expenses increase. For example, a basket of goods that cost $100 in 1989 - when this practice changed, was in 1989 - a basket of goods that cost $100 then would cost $148 today. That is a 48 per cent increase in inflation in 18 years. We did not even contemplate that back in the 1980s, and certainly we did not contemplate it in the 1960s and 1970s, that inflation would move in the way it did in this world. We are light years away from where we were forty years ago, in terms of the cost of living, and yet we have people who are living on the same pension that they went into ten years ago, fifteen years ago, twenty years ago for some of them.

They are looking to us. With me and with others, they are trying to use moral persuasion. They are trying to get us to say, and I think we should be saying, it is just to do this, let us do it and find a way to make it financially work. That does not mean that the government then ignores other seniors. The government still has a responsibility to other seniors, but this is just using the system that these workers were part of, and recognizing that this system is not working for the workers who were part of this system.

Yes, they are a subset of the group of seniors, and they have a particular situation and particular expectations as that subset and so you deal with it. You do not ignore it, you do not say, too bad, you do not say, as has been reflected back to me from a couple of seniors, you do not say what they felt they heard the Premier saying at the time of the Budget. They felt what he said was cold, it was callous. One of them even called it icy and uncaring. Those are the words that have come to me. They were not impressed with the notion that this is never going to change, and you might as well accept it and put up with it.

When we are saying that to people who are trying to live on $10,000 a year, that frightens me. It bothers me, that we have that attitude that we can look at somebody earning $10,000 a year and say, tough. Tough! Yes, we have to help everybody who is on low income. There is absolutely no doubt about it, and I will not deny all the things that the Minister of Finance has listed off that have happened, but as I have been saying in this House, we have certain programs, government programs, that in and of themselves create cracks in the program. There are places where people can fall through.

You know, I have mentioned the drug program, our drug card, and that is a program that is so important to low income people and so important to pensioners. A lot of them are probably on it because their income is so low they qualified for it. That program creates cracks that people fall through. Our home care program is not even a program, it is faulty, it has so many cracks, so many people fall through it. Some of them are probably pensioners, but like I said a minute ago maybe the pensioners do get it simply because their income is so low.

The pension plan itself, the fact that we have this pension plan that has no indexation is a major crack. Nobody should have worked for this government, no matter what their job was, and now be living in poverty; nobody. We are not going to and nobody should. If we have worked for this government in whatever form, I do not care what it is, teacher, public servants in this building, a uniformed service, it does not matter, in the health care system, in the University, if we have worked to provide services for the people of this Province - people who provide those services, we know how hard the work is that most of them do - not one of them should be living in poverty. You should not spend your life working in service to the people of this Province, doing the hard work that many of these workers did, and live in poverty. It is unconscionable, it is not acceptable and it is pensioners in all of these papers I have here who are saying to me that it is not moral. It is not Lorraine Michael standing and saying it or the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi standing and saying it or the Leader of the NDP standing and saying it, it was not like a couple of weeks ago when I used the word immoral in this House around the Budget, well these are the ones, these are the people who are using that word.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

I remind the hon. member her speaking time has expired.

MS MICHAEL: If I could just clue up, Mr. Speaker, please?

MR. SPEAKER: Does the member have leave?

AN HON. MEMBER: To clue up.

MR. SPEAKER: Leave to clue up.

MS MICHAEL: Thank you, and it will be a cluing up, just to say that I am not using a financial argument here. We could get into that and get into numbers, and I have decided not to do that. What I am using is, what I was asked by some seniors to do, to use the argument of moral persuasion. Let us decide that we have to fix something that is wrong and then find the financial way to make that happen.

Thank you, very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member for Conception Bay South.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. FRENCH: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I know this afternoon is unusual. Wednesday is Private Members’ Day, but I know today we have a couple of bills to clue up the session, so I am certainly not going to take up too much time.

I thought there were a couple of issues that I wanted to point out, in particular some of the initiatives that we have taken for seniors. I know we had the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board get up and explain some of the financial pieces. I know we had the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, get up and talk about the Poverty Reduction Strategy, and many of the strategies that are geared to seniors in particular, but certainly not specifically in some cases, and outlines that.

As most of the people here in this House know, and certainly most of the people in Newfoundland and anyone who is connected with social groups throughout the country will know, the Poverty Reduction Strategy that we have put in place over the last number of years is certainly heralded by many and actually used across the country as somewhat of a model.

Just to talk about a couple of issues, I know one of the members earlier talked about an issue that is on our radar. Well, I cannot speak for everybody in this House. I know we have talked about many issues for seniors and retirees and pensioners in caucus. It is certainly on my radar. I can honestly say that my closest neighbour is a retired nurse. Next to them there are two retired teachers who live there. Just up the street from them, there are another two retired teachers, all a stone’s throw away from my house. They have been friends of mine for a long, long time. I am very well aware of their concerns and their issues and, as a matter of fact, have spoken to them on several occasions on the whole issue.

Like I said, when I knocked on doors, obviously I ran into a number of people who were seniors. I know the issue and it is one of the things that we have all, here in caucus, brought back to the table. One of the things, as a group and as a government, we decided to do was to make initiatives that apply to all pensioners – I should not say all pensioners, but certainly all seniors.

Seniors have taken a very big priority with us. The current Minister of Health and Community Services actually went around this Province and held, in his role when he was parliamentary secretary, literally dozens – fifty-one rings a bell with me – of consultations he had around this Province. I think there were over 1,000 people attended these consultations and presentations, so we did do quite a bit.

Mr. Speaker, to say that this government is icy and is non-caring, I certainly cannot agree with that. Like I said, with the initiatives that we have taken, that is not a road that I could even consider, considering how much the people around our table fight for the causes, for social justice, and in particular seniors around this Province.

I heard the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi talk about our drug program. That is an initiative that we put in place for all seniors, Mr. Speaker. She talked about the home care, and little did she mention that we are now working on a whole long-term care strategy.

Mr. Speaker, the Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi gets up and talks. She doesn’t like to talk about numbers. She just actually got up and said that - I don’t like to talk about numbers – so maybe it is time that we put the NDP addition clock up again, so every time she talks the Minister of Finance can run numbers for us to see exactly how much she would spend with no conscience whatsoever.

This is the reality of it with pensions, and I remind the hon. Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi of this, the real issue here is that there was no money in the pension plans when we took government. From 1989-2002, the whole funds were raped and pillaged to build roads, because people thought that was a good thing to do.

Well, Mr. Speaker, here is the reality of it, and here is what we have done. The Member for Signal Hill-Quidi Vidi is right, we do have a moral responsibility, and that is exactly why we took these initiatives.

Mr. Speaker, $1.9 billion in 2006 was paid into the pension plan. Again, we have a moral responsibility to make sure that pensions are there for the people who worked for this Province, and will always be there for those who retire and have given their service to the people of this Province. That is exactly why we put in $1.953 billion in 2006.

We put in $788 million in special payments in 2005, Mr. Speaker. Again, we have a moral responsibility to ensure that there are pensions available to the people of this Province who work for the provincial government.

Mr. Speaker, that is total special payments of $2.74 billion so far we have paid into the pension plans in this Province. So, Mr. Speaker, to say we have forgotten, we are as cold as ice – we know we have a moral responsibility. We know that we want to make these plans – keep their existence; because, as the Minister of Finance said earlier, I think the teachers’ pension was going to be bankrupt by 2012, certainly not a place where we want it to be.

Again, Mr. Speaker, $982 million in special payments we made in 2007; $470 million, another special payment in 2007, for a total of $1.45 billion in 2007 to these funds, the pension funds, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, this government has, in total, spent $4.22 billion in the pension funds in this Province. So, to say that we do not have a moral responsibility is not quite true, Mr. Speaker. We more than have a moral responsibility; we realize that governments previous to ours had raped and pillaged the pension plans, and it is this government that is keeping it afloat and keeping it alive. Mr. Speaker, that is the reality of the pension plans in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, I did not want to take up too much time, and I have probably gone on a bit longer than I thought I would, but I really wanted to talk about what has happened since 2003 in the Department of Health and Community Services, and a direction that this government took right off the bat. It was a part of our Blue Book commitment in 2003. Mr. Speaker, it was all about addressing the needs of seniors in this Province.

When we talk about pensioners, certainly we talk about seniors. The very first thing that was done, there was a ministerial council struck on seniors in this Province, and that ministerial council was headed up by the Minister of Health and Community Services. It had the Minister of Education on it, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Tourism, Culture, Recreation, and several other ministers. So, right off the bat, what we did as a government, we brought the issues of seniors right to the Cabinet table with a group of ministers engaged in seniors’ initiatives.

Again, Mr. Speaker, Health and Community Services, under the guidance of Minister Wiseman now was responsible for that department. As well, Mr. Speaker, besides that, there was an interdepartmental working group put together, meaning top bureaucrats from all these different departments met on a regular basis to ensure a cohesive combination between the ministers and between top civil servants within each department, to make sure again that seniors’ initiatives were highlighted.

Mr. Speaker, what came out of that, I guess, was the establishment of an Aging and Seniors Division that was placed in Health and Community Services and, Mr. Speaker, that has become, and the idea of it was to become, a centre of expertise on seniors’ initiatives.

I know that right now we have a staff, I believe, of seven or nine people. They are consultants. Actually, the lady who heads it up right now is doing her doctorate in this field, so we are certainly well-informed on seniors’ initiatives and a number of the initiatives that they have carried out.

Besides that, Mr. Speaker, and actually I only attended a meeting last month or a couple of months ago – there is another one coming up this month, actually - for a Provincial Advisory Council. Mr. Speaker, that is made up of seniors from across this Province who meet, I will say, four or five times a year, who come together. I have the privilege of sitting on the committee, on behalf of the minister. We have a chairman and, like I said, a number of members. Mr. Speaker, they bring seniors’ issues to the table every single meeting that we have. Of course, this is another avenue for seniors’ issues to come through an avenue to get into the department with myself there and with some of the top people in the department who are part of the seniors and aging division. Then, Mr. Speaker, we translate it to the minister or refer it to the minister. Mr. Speaker, there is a constant pipeline now of seniors issues in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, once we formed the government, like I said, the current Minister of Health and Community Services was actually the Parliamentary Secretary. What he did was go around the Province holding consultation meetings. Like I said earlier, I believe it was certainly dozens. I cannot recall the exact number, but I know it was dozens of meetings across this Province where he saw over 1,000 seniors, Mr. Speaker, 1,000 seniors with a variety of issues that kept note of, and from that there was a public policy developed for seniors in this Province.

Mr. Speaker, being it late and I could go on - because of those consultations we ended up with a healthy aging policy framework. There were six priority directions, twenty-eight goals and 172 actions. Mr. Speaker, that is just to outline some of the things that we have done for seniors. I know there are many things I could get into and go on and elaborate on some of those initiatives. I know there are many things that I could go on and talk about, as to what we have done for pensioners and seniors as a group, inclusive.

Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind the public out there that we have not forgotten about pensioners. We have committed significant dollars to the pension funds to make sure they remain healthy and viable. Mr. Speaker, not only that but we have done a number of initiatives which the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment outlined earlier.

Mr. Speaker, on that I will sit down. I know we have some other business. I believe my friend from Port de Grave will clue up debate on this motion. I can assure the seniors of this Province they are far from forgotten about.

Thank you very much.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. the Member from Port de Grave to close the debate.

MR. BUTLER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Before I begin with my closing comments, I want to, I guess, correct something that I read into the record when I was here, but the real private member’s motion is what was read into the record by my hon. colleague on Monday past. I guess I have the old copy here, but when we placed it before our Table Officers they advised us that there was some grammar that we should change.

The one that I read in was the one that was clarified and changes made by the Table Officers. The correct resolve there, Mr. Speaker, is that, therefore be it resolved that the House of Assembly urges the government to resume the practice of matching increases for public service pensioners to wage increases for public sector employees.

In my closing comments, I want to thank each and every individual who stood today in their places and made their comments. I reference first the Minister of Human Resources, Labour and Employment, who is also responsible for many other duties, and the Member for St. John’s Centre, where he mentioned in his comments about how the government put funds into the pension fund so that down the road there would be a pension there for the individuals. He mentioned very clearly the programs outlined by his department and other departments for all seniors and residents of this Province, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the member for Cartwright–L’Anse au Clair, the Leader of the Opposition, who mentioned many issues that are relevant to her not only in her district but throughout the Province. Through her speech, she got some feedback from the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board, when he mentioned that the cost on a yearly basis would be approximately $40,000,000. Mr. Speaker, when I look at the surplus that we have this year and what we are anticipating down the road – pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BUTLER: That is with one per cent. It would be $40,000,000.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. BUTLER: Okay. Even with $320,000,000, Mr. Speaker, I think for the people we are referencing here, with the surpluses that we have, it should be considered by government, this particular private member’s resolution. It affects 20,000 families, we know, in this Province, Mr. Speaker, and they deserve better.

I want to reference the Minister of Finance and President of Treasury Board and thank him for his comments, the Member for Humber East, when he outlined some of the amounts that people receive in the public service sector. He mentioned people who receive in the vicinity of $16,700 and others who are in the $23,000 bracket. We know, and we have debated this here, when we talk about poverty in this Province, those people with those figures, Mr. Speaker, are below the poverty line. He outlined the various programs, that if you pay in for a longer period of time I guess your benefits will be that much better. We understand that, Mr. Speaker.

I want to thank the Member for Signal Hill – Quidi Vidi, on her comments with regards to the issue of moral responsibility and how we are trying to eliminate poverty here, and here we have a group of individuals, some of them, as she mentioned, receiving as low as $10,000 per year. I have to say, I know that to be a fact because I am sure I am not the only one who visits constituents who find themselves in those positions.

I want to reference and thank the Member for Conception Bay South for his comments about how government put the funds in to protect the funding of this particular program.

I have to say that I did not stand here today or bring this motion forward with regard to saying that the government is not caring or if they are caring. Mr. Speaker, this is about listening to our constituents, listening to the concerns that they have and bringing them forward to the floor of the House of Assembly.

Mr. Speaker, since we came here today, just to give you an example - and I guess you could stand here all day and relate incidents - but I receive an e-mail and probably other people did, since we came here today, about one lady who e-mailed us and said her sister never worked all her life. She worked for thirty years and her sister receives more benefits than she does. That is an injustice, Mr. Speaker, that we should not tolerate in this Province of ours now that we are in the financial position that we find ourselves in. This is about justice for those people.

I mean, what was done or whether they had a plan or whatever, we should not shut the door that is saying, no, we cannot look at this or look at it now or in the future. We hear too often about the deal that we struck on the Upper Churchill many years ago and how on a yearly basis we are trying to correct that with the Government of Quebec but we do not get anywhere. This is a situation here, even though there is a plan in place, where those people are receiving what they were told they would receive. Now we have the opportunity, right here on the floor of this House of Assembly, to stand, each and every one of us, and say, yes, we can open this door, we can look at what those people are asking for.

Mr. Speaker, many of those people retired with very small pensions. They have continued to erode over the years, and I can tell you and members here know that they are suffering, Mr. Speaker. They carried this Province through very trying times, very trying circumstances for very low wages, and I say, Mr. Speaker, they deserve better. We can talk all day, Mr. Speaker, but we have to visit those people, we have to walk in their shoes.

I challenge, in closing, each and every individual in this hon. House, each and every one of us, Mr. Speaker - and I will read again the quote from the Premier on April 30: public sector pensioners will not be getting any indexing or any further benefits on their pensions in the foreseeable future under his mandate. I say to each and every individual, this is a free vote, Mr. Speaker, and I challenge all my colleagues to listen to their constituents, what they have said to them, because they listened to each and every one of us when we went banging on their doors in October. We listened to them and that is why we are here.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank each and every individual who took part in this debate and I ask all my hon. colleagues to speak on behalf of their constituents today and support this private member’s motion.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER (Fitzgerald): Order, please!

Is the House ready for the Question?

AN HON. MEMBER: Ready, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the House of Assembly urges the government to consider the advisability of resuming the practice of matching increases for public service pensioners to wage increases for public sector employees.

All those in favour of the motion, 'aye'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye.

MR. SPEAKER: All those against the motion, 'nay'.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Nay.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is defeated.

Motion defeated.