Madam Speaker, I do not think the solution is to target a single group of executives or a single institution with respect to executive compensation. As has been taking place abroad, I think we in Canada need to have a broader discussion about the public interest with respect to executive compensation. I do not think any Canadian would say that people should not be fairly compensated for the work they do.
Clearly, CEOs and senior executives at corporations take on a tremendous amount of responsibility and work. For that, they should be justly compensated. However, when one looks at the acceleration of growth in executive compensation in the last 20 years vis-à-vis the rate of income growth of the average worker, I think it does raise issues of concern.
In particular, I am not talking about the executive that is making a couple million dollars a year in compensation. I am talking about packages of income, salary and bonuses that amount to $10 million to $20 million annually.
When we start seeing rates of compensation like that, I think questions should be raised about whether those levels of executive compensation are appropriate and whether the government, in a general context, should take a look at imposing income taxes in a way that discourages that kind of compensation. I do not think anybody in Canada would disagree with that kind of debate and approach.