Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that public pensions are provincial areas of jurisdiction. We used the federal spending power in the mid-1960s to convince the provinces to come on board with a single national plan. We were successful in convincing nine out of the ten provinces to do so. Quebec chose to establish its own Quebec pension plan. As a result, there is a federal-provincial agreement in place to effect any changes to the pension plan. The agreement said that as a government we need to secure the support of two-thirds of the provinces in this country that have at least two-thirds of the Canadian population.
In recent media reports, some provinces, such as Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta, have indicated some concern about increasing the benefit levels.
Can my colleague from Calgary tell the House what challenges there would be to achieving a substantial agreement in order to effect these increases in benefit levels and premiums?