Hon. Percy E. Downe: Honourable senators, I would like to thank the senators who have added their signatures in support of our efforts to have the U.K. government correct the appalling situation where recipients of the U.K. State Pension in Canada are receiving pensions of declining value because they are not indexed. U.K. State Pension recipients in the United States and a host of other countries — Turkey, Iceland, Philippines, this list goes on — receive indexed pensions, but not in Canada.

Given the high inflation in our country, some of these pensioners are now living in poverty and therefore must be supported by the Canadian government through the Guaranteed Income Supplement rather than pensions into which they contributed in the United Kingdom.

Colleagues, over 120,000 U.K. citizens living in Canada are collecting non-indexed British state pensions, and our Canadian economy is losing over $450 million in spending power because of the U.K. government.

As a reminder, Canada indexes the Canada Pension Plan, or CPP, regardless of where in the world the recipient lives. As the U.K. government now tries to negotiate a free trade deal with Canada, this would be a great opportunity for the United Kingdom government to show goodwill by removing this irritant between our countries and treating their citizens in a fair and compassionate manner. Thank you, colleagues.