Bill C-25 (Historical)

Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act

An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts

This enactment provides a legal framework for the establishment and administration of pooled registered pension plans that will be accessible to employees and self-employed persons and that will pool the funds in members’ accounts to achieve lower costs in relation to investment management and plan administration.

Bill C-25--Notice of time allocation motion

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I have tremendous respect for the work of the member across the way.

The pooled registered pension plan has been agreed upon by all of the provinces and all of the territories. This legislation here in the House would allow the provinces and territories to continue to make that plan better.

Is the member going to allow his party to vote in favour, along with the provinces and territories, for this PRPP?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member is one of the members opposite who has respect for what I have been doing over my political life. As I hear from some others, I am not sure that respect is broadly shared by the other side. I appreciate the comment.

We will be deciding as a caucus what our response will be to the legislation. We do not think this is the great, big, bold step as it has been described by her party. We certainly do not think it is going to provide a resolution to the current challenges facing this generation of workers and the next generation of senior citizens.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to be here today to speak to Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act.

Before I start, I want to thank the Minister of State (Finance), the member for Macleod, for his work on this in close cooperation with the provincial ministers of finance. It is no easy task when we are told to look at the retirement packages that Canadians will have and what they will be able to spend in their retirement years. We want to ensure that we are able to provide that. We want to ensure that they have the tools to provide that, too.

I think the PRPP would do a good job. I think if all parties put away the rhetoric and the verbal diarrhea we have just heard and looked at Bill C-25, they would see that this is not a bad way to move forward. It is a reasonable and prudent way, considering today's environment. Bill C-25 would provide a pension plan that individuals could take on. It would provide a pension plan that small companies could offer to their employees.

Last weekend, I attended a Chamber of Commerce function in Nipawin. The guest speaker was Eric Anderson, a very good speaker who talked about the resource sector in Saskatchewan. He talked about all the opportunities and about the labour shortage. Saskatchewan will face a labour shortage as it sees expansion in potash, uranium, gold, and oil and gas, and the re-emergence of the forestry sector.

I have to thank Brad Wall and his Saskatchewan government for doing such a great job in allowing that growth to happen. Under the NDP government, that would never happen. We have seen people leaving this province under the NDP government. Under the Saskatchewan Party government, we have actually seen people come back. We are now trying to draw in people from all over Canada and around the world to work in the great province of Saskatchewan.

However, because we are so short of labour, the smaller companies are trying to figure out how they are going to be able to retain employees. How do they compete against the big, multinational companies? How do they compete against government organizations? How do they take a mechanic they have seen through to journeyman status and keep him or her in their organization?

When I worked for Flexi-Coil and Case New Holland, talking to our agriculture dealers, that was a common problem. How do they keep that mechanic in their dealerships, after having spent time and effort getting him or her trained to understand their equipment? That was a big problem.

The PRPP is one tool that would allow the employer to do that. I think it is a great tool. Small businesses do not have the ability to take on big pension plans. They do not have the resources. They do not have the fiduciary capacity. They do not have the administration. They cannot afford it. If they only have four or five employees, or one or two employees, they cannot hire a person to administer a pension plan. They have to be a certain size in order to get economies of scale. That is the beauty of this plan: it would allow a pension to be built. It would allow the pooling of resources to get economies of scale.

Another nice thing about this program is it would actually allow a third party to come in and administer the plan. The employer would not have the burden of hiring somebody to administer a pension plan. It would allow the third party to coordinate and work through this pension plan with that employee.

As an advantage over existing pension plans, if an employee decided to change jobs, the plan would follow the employee. If I, as a mechanic, decided that I wanted to take a job at a different dealership, I could take it with me. It is my money. It would follow me wherever I went. That is a great plan. It would allow the retention of employees. It would allow an employer to say, “I have a pension plan here that you can contribute to”. Yet it would allow the employee the freedom to change jobs and that pension plan would follow him or her. It is a great idea.

This plan is the federal portion of it. Of course, the cooperation of the provinces would be needed in order to see this plan move forward and be implemented throughout Canada. I am sure we would have that cooperation, considering the amount of work the member for Macleod, the Minister of State (Finance), has put into the plan.

He has consulted with the provincial ministers of finance over and over and over again. He has talked to business groups, employees and employers about options that they could look at to provide that stability for people during their retirement days. This would be a good result.

One of the arguments was that we should just raise CPP. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said that one thing about raising CPP is that it kills jobs. In parts of Canada, killing jobs would be very serious. In my area, we actually have a shortage of labour. We are sitting at about a 4% or 5% unemployment rate. We need everybody we can get. However, some areas are not that lucky. We do not want to kill jobs. We want to see jobs continue to grow. We still want to see jobs and people employed in different regions of the country.

I know the opposition members do not want to kill jobs, so I think they can understand. When we talk to third parties, professors and experts in the industry, we do not want to raise CPP. That is not the option in this day and age that is correct.

However, if we do not have that option what else do we have? Employers say that they cannot afford to provide a pension. They cannot afford the administrative costs. They say that they cannot afford to hire someone to administer a pension. Some businesses are not big enough and do not have enough economies of scale to pay for a pension plan.

This is why PRPPs came about. It is a good idea. It is a good cross balance. It would allow employees to have that benefit and would allow employers to offer that benefit if they chose. They could even contribute financially to it. Again, it would be up to the employer and the employee, their relationship and their benefit package. It would give them that flexibility to move forward. It would allow the employees to have a few more tools in their basket for what they can use for retirement. They could have an RRSP, a pension and a PRPP, if their company offers a PRPP. They would have a lot of options. I think it is just being prudent.

It also would encourage people to save for retirement, which is something all of us have been told we should be doing. We all know that the younger we start the better off we will be when we come to retirement age. We should always keep encouraging members of society, especially young members, to be saving more and more as we move forward.

When I look at the intent of the PRPP and how it would to work, and when I see how it would benefit the employees, this is a very positive step forward.

There has been a lot of confusion today, which is really too bad because this bill should have intelligent debate. It should be debated on the merits of it, not on a wild range of speculation and hip hurrah over other things. We need to talk about the PRPP and refocus on what this legislation is actually about.

We need to look at the situation as if we were in that employee's shoes. We are in our mid-40s and wondering what retirement benefits are available. We might have RRSPs, which we could maximize on or do the best on that. However, we know a lot of Canadians are not doing that. We have been paying into CPP so we know that will be there. We have GIS, which the government actually raised, so we know that will be there. We have OAS, old age security. We know that is in the works. We understand there are some challenges with OAS but again we will discuss that at a future date. However, that is not this bill. This bill is the PRPP, the pooled registered pension plan. That is what we are discussing here today.

I encourage other members to put away all the noise and focus on the PRPP. We need to ensure we get a proper piece of legislation that moves forward and actually works for employees and employers. If we were to agree to put politics aside and just focus on the employer and employee, we would actually look at this bill in a different light. When people turn 60 or 65, or when they decide to retire, what will they have in benefits? If the PRPP is in that basket, 15 or 20 years from now they will be thanking us for voting in favour of this legislation.

I think this is great legislation. I again thank the member for Macleod, the Minister of State for Finance. I also thank the parliamentary secretary for all her hard work on this file. I know she has worked very hard on the background to this. All the members of the finance committee on both sides of the line have also worked hard in different consultations, too.

I encourage members to focus on the pooled registered pension plan, on Bill C-25. We need to get this legislation through and, once we get it through, then we can get on to other business. Members can be reassured that their constituents will thank them for doing it.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, several years ago, a private company that I used to work for allowed certain employees to withdraw their pension funds and invest them into the stock market or wherever they wanted to. That was a lot like what the Conservative government wants to do today with this PRPP, invest money in the stock market. It was a substantial amount, several hundred thousands of dollars.

The stock market goes up and down and in the employee's case the stock market went down and he lost all of his investment. Today, at the age of 63 or 64, this former employee with a big pension is now working, not because he wants to but because he has to.

My question is for the member for Prince Albert. Why do the Conservatives-Reformists enjoy watching seniors live in poverty?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that type of language does not working necessarily for moving this legislation forward.

It is actually very interesting that the member talks about this because in n the PRPP there can be third party providers and it can be a variety of different agencies. It could be a bank or a credit union. However, when people sit down with that provider, they will have the option of looking at the types of investments they want to put their PRPP in.

Depending on their age, people may be looking at different risk levels as they invest. For example, people who are a little younger may be willing to sustain a little loss and ride through the markets for the longer term. They may want to take on more risk. People who are getting closer to retirement may say that that is their nest egg and will not want to submit it to a lot of risk. They may put it in a portfolio that will actually have very little risk. That portfolio may not be stock market related, it might be government bonds or other things.

The market does what a market does. It goes up and it goes down. We all know that and we have all seen it. We tell our kids that. To try to predict the market is a very dangerous game.

I think people need to work with a good, proper third party person who is an expert in this field and who can help manage that risk so that they can actually get that value out of their money when they go to retire.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, the member talked about confusion, rhetoric and fluff. The member talked about the plan specifically to the official opposition, which was about raising EI premiums, and went on at length about being the job killer that it is, yet earlier this month premiums did just that, they went up.

I was wondering why the member let that happen under his watch if he truly feels that they are job killers?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the hon. member was not listening. I was actually talking about CPP and what would happen if we were to raise CPP, which is that it would actually kill jobs. That is why we did not want to see that.

Again, in looking at what was in my speech and what I said, I was very clear. In talking to groups like the Canadian Federation of Independent Business about raising CPP, they actually said that it would reduce jobs. That is why we did not go that route.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for clarifying exactly what this is about.

I would like to know, from someone from Saskatchewan, what the importance of portability is in this pension plan where people are able to move from one job to another. Is that important to the people of Saskatchewan?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Mr. Speaker, it is nice to have a question in regard to the bill. I must commend to member for sticking to the topic, which is Bill C-25, the PRPP.

In Saskatchewan, the importance is very huge. We do see employees change jobs, one to another, especially the younger they are. If people have a job when they are 25 and start a PRPP, they can keep moving that. That versatility is with them as they change jobs or maybe even change career paths. The PRPP is theirs until they retire. That is the beauty of this legislation.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Prince Albert will have five minutes remaining for questions and comments when the House next resumes debate on this question.

The House resumed from January 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-25, An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Second Reading

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the chance to speak to Bill C-25, an act regarding the pooled registered pension plan. Certainly there will not be many more of us who have this opportunity.

As members may have already noted, the plan would fail to adequately address the current needs of Canada's aging population. Seniors represent one of the fastest-growing populations in Canada today. The number of seniors in Canada is projected to increase from 4.2 million in 2005 to 9.8 million by 2036. With so many seniors retiring in the years to come, we need to have the social safety net in place now to avoid dramatic increases in the rate of poverty in the future. We need real pension reform, not a savings scheme that is dependent upon the ups and downs of the stock market. Canadians know all too well how ineffective and expensive that kind of savings plan is. Too many saw their savings crumble away as the markets took a nosedive. This is most definitely not how savings for retirement should be organized.

The CPP, when it was established in 1966, was set up with the assumption that individuals would also have workplace pensions and individual savings to complete their CPP benefits. For the average Canadian, real wages have failed to increase, making savings for retirement a virtual impossibility. More and more, workplaces have cut pension programs, leaving only about 25% of workers with a private pension plan.

This savings scheme that we have seen proposed by the federal Conservatives purports to address the pension savings shortfall, but fails to address the problems at the heart of the retirement savings problem in Canada.

For employees, a PRPP is like a defined contribution, or group RRSP. It is a savings vehicle, limited by RRSP limits and regulations, purported to allow workers to save for retirement, but it would not guarantee retirement security. PRPPs would be managed by the financial industry, the same crew receiving huge corporate tax breaks from the Conservatives. The PRPP is not a defined benefit plan. It would not provide a secure retirement income with a set replacement rate of pre-retirement income. It would not be fully transferable. It would not be indexed to inflation and would not increase with the increasing cost of living.

It is noteworthy that employers, not employees, would decide contribution levels and it would not be mandatory for employers to contribute or match workers' contributions to these PRPPs. Without employers contributing, it would not really be a pension plan. In fact, employers who do not help their employees save for retirement could end up with a competitive advantage over employers who do. This would have a huge limitation on the effectiveness of PRPPs as a means to increase retirement security at all.

The proposed PRPPs do not guarantee low management fees, nor prevent the large management fees that eat up such a large portion of retirement savings now. In fact, there is only a promise that PRPPs will result in large pools of capital and that they might lower fees, with no guarantees or legislative results. Nothing in the PRPP proposals sets management expenses at levels equal to or lower than those of the Canada pension plan. As a result, CPP is still a better deal than PRPPs, not only because CPP is guaranteed and indexed but because it has much lower management fees.

The pooled registered pension plan would not help those who are struggling the most, the poor. The government's own advisory group, the National Seniors Council, in 2009 reported that, generally, most people did not experience dramatic declines in income when they turn 65, rather low income as for seniors is the result of the inability to accumulate assets over time. The council also argues that given their greater longevity, women are far more likely to be unattached in later life and at greater risk of experiencing low incomes. Indeed, women represented about three-quarters of the 179,000 unattached low-income seniors in 2006.

The National Seniors Council also points out that Canada's retirement income system, the OAS, CPP and private pension savings and investments, has helped reduced the incidence of low income among seniors and helped increase overall living standards. The OAS and GIS programs play a critical role in ensuring that seniors have a modest base of income. Still, a core group of seniors remain vulnerable: the unattached, recent immigrants, those with fewer than 10 years in the labour force and aboriginal seniors. The council points out that low income seniors spend most of their money on housing, food, transportation and health-related costs.

I have met with Canadian seniors and seniors organizations representing people from across the country. I have taken the time to listen to what they had to say and they are very concerned about access to health care, medicine, being forced from their homes and losing their autonomy. All of these things hinge on one simple thing, financial security. This current scheme, the one we have before us, does not provide security and without financial security, our seniors are left vulnerable to abuse and poverty.

Fixing our pension problem is not the only step we can take. We should provide education and financial literacy so Canadians can be better informed about planning for their retirement. To underscore that point is the 2005 report from the National Council on Aging. It found in a review of under-subscription to the OAS program and Canada pension plan that large numbers of eligible seniors had not applied for these programs. About 55,000 eligible people did not apply for their retirement pension. In 2004 alone, about 1,000 people made a late application for their CPP.

The council recommends that the federal government work to reduce the failure rate among people who are eligible for old age security and CPP benefits. It should also make public the number of eligible seniors who have not applied for the various benefit programs.

This is important because of the negative impact it has. Women are three times more likely to be late applying for CPP. Late applicants are also noticeably more numerous in Quebec, Yukon and the Northwest Territories, regions where there are more seniors living under the poverty line.

The fact is that late applications for CPP benefits causes serious consequences. Currently, a person who is late applying for his or her pension under the CPP is only entitled to 11 months of retroactive benefits, whereas the QPP provides up to 5 years of back benefits. The federal retroactive period for CPP is clearly insufficient and unfair because this program is based on employee-employer contributions. The money has been contributed and it should be available to the retiree.

The council therefore recommends that the federal government allow fully retroactive benefits, plus interest, when someone applies late under the Canada pension plan because it is a contribution-based program.

I will also say a few words about RRSPs, as they are much touted as a safe and valuable retirement savings plan. The National Council on Aging argues that people with low incomes actually derive no advantage from investing in RRSPs, an investment program that allows contributors to delay paying income tax until the invested amounts are cashed in. However, people with low income pay little or no income tax during their working lives anyway. If they are entitled to the GIS upon retirement, they will actually be penalized when they cash in their RRSPs, since these amounts will inevitably lead to a reduction in GIS benefits.

For example, a person receiving the GIS who cashes in a $1,000 RRSP could see his or her GIS benefit reduced by $527. Furthermore, those GIS recipients, who are among the 50% who pay income tax, will see a further reduction of $250. Finally, other benefits such as provincial-territorial income supplements or subsidized housing may be lost or reduced as well. The clawbacks discourage low income earners from making the already difficult effort to save.

Among people aged 55 to 64, 21% have no retirement assets and 32% have assets of less than $100,000. Seniors with no retirement income will receive maximum benefits from the government. However, those who have saved a little, about $23,000 in RRSPs, will have a significant portion of their assets confiscated by provincial and federal governments because both of these governments will recover the money through income tax and through reduced benefits paid out of their income tested programs.

This reality points to another, better way to assist low income seniors in gaining economic security. We must end the clawbacks. This would be a smarter investment and first step in eliminating poverty for seniors in Canada.

I would like to talk numbers now. The CCPA outlines the cost savings in investing in pensions. I think the House will find these numbers very interesting.

The federal government estimates that the net cost to the government of tax assistance to RRSPs, the third tier of retirement income, was $9.3 billion in 2005. This was projected to rise to $12.1 billion by 2010. The net cost of tax subsidies to registered pension plans in 2005 was $13.3 billion, projected to increase to $16.8 billion by 2010. Net cost is the cost in lost tax revenue by government for RRSP contributions. It is significant that the net cost in lost tax revenues of tax subsidies to registered pension plans and RRSPs in 2010, at $28.9 billion, is greater than the total cost of OAS benefits, estimated at $27.6 billion for 2009-10.

The CCPA, using data from Statistics Canada, points out that only 38% of employed Canadians have a workplace pension. It is also important to note that most Canadians who are entitled to contribute to an RRSP fail to do so. In many cases it would appear many of those eligible to contribute cannot afford to do that. Statistics Canada reports that 88% of tax filers were eligible to contribute to an RRSP in 2006, but only 31% actually made contributions. They used only 7% of the total contribution room available to them. In other words, there is now more than $500 billion in unused RRSP contribution room being carried forward.

Pension reform should reconsider the high cost of taxpayer subsidies to RRSPs and private pensions. A reduction of the tax subsidies to the third tier of the retirement income system would free up funds to improve benefits for CPP. A secure retirement for all Canadians would be ensured with $28.9 billion.

There are many among us who have concerns for the future and those concerns are entirely justified.

As I mentioned earlier, only 25% of Canadian workers have workplace pensions and nearly one-third have no retirement savings at all. More than 3.5 million Canadians are not saving enough in their RRSPs for what used to be called their golden years and 75% of workers are not even participating in a registered pension plan. Clearly the notion that retirement savings can be adequately accounted for through purchases of RRSPs does not work. Urgent government action is needed.

It should further be noted that private retirement savings are concentrated in a small percentage of Canadian families. According to Statistics Canada, 25% of Canadian families hold 84% of current retirement assets, while three out of ten families have no private pensions at all.

Seniors have worked hard all of their lives. They have played by the rules and now they simply want access to the programs and services that their hard-earned tax dollars helped to make possible. Every senior in Canada has the absolute right to income security.

In a series of polls conducts by the Canadian Labour Congress in 2004, 73% of Canadians polled said that they worried about not having enough income to live after retirement. The number of people who worried about income security had increased by almost 20% from two years before.

Canadians are worried about the solvency of their private pensions, the adequate nature of CPP and public income support and their ability to cope with what Statistics Canada confirms is a higher rate of inflation for seniors than average Canadians. We know life is getting more expensive. Those fears are well-founded. Right now, more than one-quarter of a million seniors live below the poverty line. Since the mid-1990s, the income of seniors has reached a ceiling and the gap between the income of seniors and that of other Canadians is now increasing.

According to the government's own National Advisory Council on Aging, between 1997 and 2003 the mean income of senior households increased by $4,100 while the average income of other Canadian households increased by $9,000. The situation is even more pronounced for seniors living alone. A life of poverty is most prevalent among women, those widowed, separated or divorced, recent immigrants, tenants, those without private pension coverage, and not surprisingly, those with low wages.

Senior women face harsh realities upon retirement. The poverty rate for senior women is almost double the poverty rate for senior men. In particular, unattached senior women remain very vulnerable. They make up 60% of seniors living below the poverty line. In 2003, according to a Government of Canada report, 154,000 unattached senior women lived in poverty. Poverty is a real issue for seniors. Income insecurity makes them vulnerable to abuse. Financial security equals autonomy.

New Democrats have concrete solutions to solving the pensions problem that faces Canadians. We would work with the provinces to bring about increases to the Canada and Quebec pension plan benefits with the eventual goal to double the benefits received. We would work with the provinces to build in the flexibility for employees and employers to make voluntary contributions to individual public pension accounts. We would amend federal bankruptcy legislation to move pensions and long-term disability recipients to the front of the line of creditors when their employers enter court protection or declare bankruptcy.

As government, we would increase the annual guaranteed income supplement to a sufficient level in our first budget to lift every senior in Canada out of poverty. Seniors are important to our party, so much so that our first opposition day in the House after the 2011 election was dedicated to asking the government to invest in seniors and raise the GIS sufficiently to eliminate seniors poverty in Canada. We did our homework and discovered that in combination with increases to the GIS set out in the June 2011 budget, the cost to taxpayers would be significantly less than $700 million. This is an intelligent, practical and affordable investment that would make a positive difference in the everyday lives of seniors currently living in poverty.

The argument that we as a country cannot afford to lift seniors out of poverty is preposterous. The most recent round of corporate tax cuts will cost the Government of Canada $13.5 billion over the next three years. A tiny fraction of this money would be enough to lift every senior in this country out of poverty. Canada is a rich and privileged country. Our wealth and prosperity are in no small measure the result of the lifetime of work done by Canadians who are or will be seniors. We absolutely must support these people because it is the ethical thing to do and, in practical terms, because they in turn support our economy and their communities and families. They contribute a great deal.

New Democrats are proposing an easy, affordable, targeted solution to a very real problem. As politicians, we have an obligation to make this happen. It is time that we abandoned partisan rhetoric and acted as one to stand up for seniors.

While I am very pleased that in June the NDP motion passed unanimously in the House and that all parties supported that initiative, the budget implementation bill and this Conservative pension scheme failed to take the NDP motion into account, despite its passing unanimously. The Conservatives seem to have conveniently forgotten their duty to the people they have pledged to serve. It seems that the government is only willing to pay lip service to democracy, as witnessed today, and to seniors struggling to make ends meet.

Canada does not need yet another voluntary, tax-assisted retirement savings program. It needs public pensions that provide all Canadians with a basic guarantee of adequate income that would protect their standard of living in retirement. Expanding the Canada pension plan would meet this objective. Improving the replacement rate of CPP retirement benefits would provide better retirement pensions to virtually all Canadians. A relatively modest increase in rates would achieve this.

The CPP covers all workers, including those who are self-employed. Its benefits would be guaranteed in relation to earnings and years of service. They would be indexed for inflation and fully portable from one job to another. This is the real solution, not the Conservatives' bogus pooled registered pension plan.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member talked simultaneously about two contradictory policy objectives. One, she said that we should bolster public pensions. Two, she said that we should raise business taxes. What does one have to do with the other?

The reality is that every public or private pension program in this entire country is deeply invested in the Canadian stock market. For example, Canada Post workers have a pension plan that has billions of dollars invested in banks and oil companies. In fact, the top five holdings of the Canada Post pension fund are all banks, insurance companies or oil companies. As of the spring, that fund had $200 million invested in TD Bank.

The benefits paid by these corporations to these pension funds are done entirely on an after-tax basis. That means every time business taxes are raised, the dividends paid to pension funds go down. Roughly half of the Canada pension plan is invested in equities of this kind. Again, only after-tax profits can be paid to the CPP on those equity holdings.

Why would the member want to raise taxes on the pension holdings of millions of unionized workers and Canadians who are invested in the CPP?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very interesting and in fact I find it absolutely fascinating that the member would have the nerve to talk about the pension plans of postal workers when last June the government sought to gut those pension benefits.

If it is so secure, if this is such a good idea, why did the government take the pension benefits out from under the CUPW workers and legislate them back to work from a lockout, robbing them of their pensions, wages and dignity? I find it fascinating that he would have the nerve to even talk about this.

When we say increase contributions to the CPP, it is gradual and it is over time in terms of incremental and will not be felt.

The member talked about this being bad for business. I would say that a whole generation of impoverished seniors who cannot participate in the economy is likewise bad for business.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday our critic in the Liberal Party, the member for York West, did a wonderful job in terms of explaining our party's position.

To give a bit of a history, the Liberal Party, through prime ministers like King and Laurier, is the one that implemented the pension programs that we have today. I believe the Liberal Party is just as strong today as it ever was in terms of wanting to ensure that these critically important programs are going to be there and will be healthy going into the future.

When we talk about OAS, GIS or CPP, we are very much concerned with respect to recent announcements by the Conservatives and the impact on these important programs. We are going to fight for the integrity of these programs.

I ask the member, if provinces such as Quebec and others are asking for programs such as the one in this bill, which we would suggest needs major changes to make it better legislation, would the NDP have any problems with it going to committee?