These pensioners call upon Parliament to amend the Company Creditors Arrangement Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act to protect the rights of all Canadian employees and to ensure that employees laid off by a company and who receive a pension or long-term disability benefits during bankruptcy proceedings obtain preferred creditor status over all other unsecured creditors.

Madam Speaker, because of the bankruptcy of Nortel, I would like to present a petition signed by a number of Canadians that states: The Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act currently do not protect the rights of all Canadian employees laid off by a company who are receiving pensions or long-term disability benefits during bankruptcy proceedings.

Products offered by the industry include individual and group life insurance; retirement and investment contracts, such as individual and group annuities, RRSPs, RRIFs, and pensions; disability insurance to provide replacement income for individuals who are unable to work due to illness or injury; health insurance benefits supplementary to public plans; critical illness insurance to provide financial assistance in the event of serious health problems; and long-term care insurance to help individuals prepare for a time when they can no longer function independently.

There is also a risk of substitution effects between different sections of the social security systems, such as retirement and invalidity.

2. Notwithstanding Article 2(2), Member States may provide that the fixing for occupational social security schemes of ages for admission or entitlement to retirement or invalidity benefits, including the fixing under those schemes of different ages for employees or groups or categories of employees, and the use, in the context of such schemes, of age criteria in actuarial calculations, does not constitute discrimination on the grounds of age, provided this does not result in discrimination on the grounds of sex.

The benefits included in the insurance contract might encompass benefits which are paid after death of the insured to the widow(er) and children (mainly death in service), benefits which are paid after retirement and benefits which are paid after the insured became disabled.