PSAC Pension Fightback Campaign

September 18, 1999

Throughout the seven month pension campaign, the PSAC has promised legal action in the event that the legislation was adopted. Our promise will become a reality next week, when we meet with our legal counsel to begin the process of defining our legal case against Bill C-78 and the government of Canada.

Least we forget, in passing Bill C-78, the government stooped to new and almost unparalleled lows in its attempt to subvert the normal democratic process.

While it is nothing new for governments to ignore reasoned opposition to legislation and sound economic, social and moral arguments, this government on this Bill has consciously repudiated the position of the overwhelming majority of the Canadian public. Any government should have paused in the face of public opinion showing only 5% support for its position, yet the Chrétien government responded by stacking the Senate with six new Senators—reminiscent of the former government’s final unconscionable gambit during the GST debate.

And it’s not that the government did not have opportunities to make the legislation right, and lots of them. Throughout the process, the PSAC and others made significant overtures to the government that would have seen the surplus shared between plan members and the government—overtures that were repeatedly rejected, ignored and pushed aside.

And in June even the Senate, a majority whose members hold allegiance to the Liberal Party, told the government to make the pension bill right. In an unprecedented move, the Senate, acting on a commitment from former Minister Massé, delayed passage of the Bill in order to allow the parties an opportunity to meet and reach agreement on the outstanding pension issues. That no meetings were scheduled subverted the will of the Senate, and as such is an indictment of the government that borders on contempt of Parliament.

While the PSAC will pursue legal action against the government’s theft of the $30 billion pension plan surplus, legal action cannot replace a mobilized membership. Although the government would like nothing more than have Bill C-78 languish in the arcane and notoriously slow legal maze for the next few years, the PSAC has other plans. In addition to matching the government step for step in the legal arena, we are committed to continuing the political pressure that delayed passage of the legislation and forced the government to reconfigure the Senate in its attempt to pass the Bill.

The political campaign will move from the Senate to the elected Members of Parliament, with a commitment from the PSAC, that we will work against candidates who voted to support Bill C-78 in the House of Commons, and for political parties that commit to repudiating the legislation if they form the next government.