Pensions at risk: stop Bill C-27

A new federal bill brought forward by the Trudeau government is once again placing our pensions at risk. The Society is mobilizing to stop this legislation along with other unions, workers and pensioners across Canada. We are demanding that the Trudeau government withdraw Bill C-27, known as An Act to Amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act. We need your help – we need you to contact Finance Minister Bill Morneau and your local Member of Parliament.

Contact Finance Minister Morneau to save your pension

Take action to stop this erosion of good, secure pensions by emailing Minister of Finance Bill Morneau and your Member of Parliament now using the instructions below:

  1. Using your personal e-mail account, create a new message and add the email addresses of Minister of Finance Bill Morneau (bill.morneau@canada.ca) and CC your Member of Parliament. Visithttp://www.parl.gc.ca/Parliamentarians/en/members and use the FIND MP tool to identify your Member of Parliament and obtain their e-mail address. Also add society@thesociety.ca in the CC field so we can quantify the number of emails sent by members when Society leaders go to lobby government on this issue.
  2. In the body of the e-mail, write your own message and/or copy and paste in your email this sample letter The Society has created to assist you:

Dear Minister Morneau,

I am writing to express my opposition to the government’s Bill C-27 An Act to Amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act. I ask that you withdraw this bill now.

By making it possible for employers to convert defined benefit pension plans to target benefit plans, hundreds of thousands of Canadians could face income insecurity in retirement. Not only will this bill directly affect the 489,000 members of federal sector pensions, it will create a disastrous precedent in other Canadian jurisdictions where I fear it will hurt families like mine. After Bill C-27 it would be a short step to imposing conversions to target benefit plans, as they have done in New Brunswick with devastating results.

When Canadians voted for the Trudeau government, they were led to believe they were supporting a party that would protect and improve Canadians’ retirement security. Prime Minister Trudeau has no mandate to bring back the same pension busting reforms that even Stephen Harper abandoned.

I look forward to your timely response.

Sincerely,

[FULL NAME]

[FULL ADDRESS]

  1. Send your e-mail and then ask your colleagues, friends and family to do the same.

 

Additional Resources

Letter to Finance Minister Bill Morneau from President Scott Travers on behalf of The Society of United Professionals

Bill C-27: Undermining Canadian Pensions (provides background information about Bill C-27, the risk it poses to pensions and New Brunswick’s experience with similar legislation)

Key Messages (a summary of the reasons Bill C-27 is bad for Canadian workers and pensioners)