NDP Hammers Liberals for Refusing to Stop Pension Theft in Budget Measure

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called the lack of any new laws to protect workers’ pensions from being raided by banks and creditors in the government’s BIA is a “moral failure” on the part of the Liberal government.

“We’ve seen it time and time again; when a company files for bankruptcy, workers and pensioners lose millions in retirement savings, while banks and big investors always get their money back,” said Singh. “The Liberals had a chance to make a real difference here and they refused to act.”

On Monday, the Liberal government tabled their Budget Implementation Act, which amends Canada’s bankruptcy laws to protect commercial license-holders and corporations, but fails to protect workers’ pensions within those same bankruptcy laws.

“This is the priority of these Liberals, they’re happy to make changes to help big corporations and wealthy executives but when it comes to protecting people’s pensions, it’s ‘sorry, that’s too complicated,’” said Scott Duvall, the NDP’s Pensions Critic. “We have news for the Liberals: it’s not too late and the NDP will be pushing this government to do the right thing. They must amend the budget bill and end pension theft.”