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February 12, 2007 The Right Honourable Stephen Harper Dear Prime Minister Harper: The exact dates of the hearings are as follows: Presentation of Evidence and Expert Testimony: Final Arguments: Bill C-78 received Royal Assent on September 14th, 1999 and allowed the Federal Government to appropriate an estimated $30.2 billion from the superannuation accounts of the 670,000 active contributors and retirees subject to the Public Service Superannuation Act (PSSA), the Canadian Armed Forces Superannuation Act (CFSA) and the RCMP Superannuation Act (RCMPSA). The legislation was rushed through the House of Commons with the Federal Government resorting to the use of time allocation on several different occasions. On May 25th, 1999 during the vote on third reading of Bill C-78 in the House of Commons the following members of your current Cabinet and party caucus voted against this legislation: The Honourable Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat), Minister of Human Resources and Social Development Jim Abbott (Kootenay-Columbia) The Honourable Marjory LeBreton, Leader of the Government in the Senate and Secretary of State (Seniors) also voted against Bill C-78 during third reading in the Senate on September 14th, 1999. We would invite you to review the relevant extracts from Hansard which record the fervent opposition and criticisms conveyed by your cabinet and caucus colleagues during the debates and committee hearings on Bill C-78 in both the House of Commons and the Senate. For example, we refer to the following “Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-78, the public service pension plan raid. At least that is what I would suggest the title should be. As we have heard from many of the people who have spoken on this bill, what it all boils down to is the government getting its sticky fingers on $30 billion of private pension funds. The money that the government insists on putting its sticky fingers on is being taken from the Canadian people who paid into this fund. Let us look at who it is taking this money from. It is taking $14.9 billion from the public service plan…” We couldn't have said it better ourselves!! At a most basic and fundamental level, we think you will agree that Bill C-78 is patently unfair and unreasonable. As plaintiffs in the current legal proceedings our position is that this legislation represents a fundamental breach of the federal government's fiduciary obligations towards current and retired federal public service employees who contributed to the various superannuation accounts with the expectation that these funds would be utilized solely for the purposes of providing pension benefits. Furthermore, we argue that as the superannuation plans are included in the terms and conditions of employment of federal public service employees, Bill C-78 constitutes an abrogation of contractual responsibilities by the Federal Government. We are extremely confident that the facts of this case and existing legal jurisprudence will eventually result in a court decision in our favour. We have also unqualified support for our efforts from the members of our organizations. During the 2006 election campaign, the Conservative Party stated on the Since the last federal election on January 23rd, 2006, we have observed your government successfully intervene in a number of high profile disputes involving Canadians who were the victims of tainted blood products, residential schools, discriminatory tax levies and unfounded terrorism allegations. Yet, over the same time period, your government has remained silent and not taken any initiatives to correct the serious consequences for our members and their families arising from Bill C-78. We anticipate intense and continuous media coverage of the Bill C-78 trial deliberations, particularly in the National Capital Region. As a consequence, we would strongly encourage your government to intervene in this matter and spare the Canadian public any further expense and acrimony of long and protracted legal proceedings. We think you would agree that the interests of all parties would be better served in this manner. We thank you, in advance, for your consideration of this most important issue. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding any of the foregoing, please do not hesitate to have one of your officials contact the current representative for our organization. On behalf of the c.c. |