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.

The House resumed from May 29 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 third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act

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

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Niagara West—Glanbrook.

I must confess that my plan to lose two inches off my waistline by summer is not going well. Part of the blame rests with a lovely little restaurant in my riding called La Porto A Casa, which has the best tiramisu in Canada. I am prepared to certify that on the floor of this House of Commons. It has, as a business, been a model of a Canadian success story.

Only about four years ago, it opened the restaurant and, within several months, it had to double in size of square footage to accommodate the enormous demand. It now employs 16 people in our community. It has never asked for a government grant or handout, but it pays salaries and wages and provides the citizens of Barrhaven with a wonderful meeting place and a good, solid, authentic Italian dinner or lunch.

The only thing not on the menu, though, is a workplace pension plan. The reason for that is that out of the 16 employees that one would have in a business that size, it does not make financial sense to hire somebody, or a group of people, to administer a pension plan. In fact, there are businesses just like La Porto A Casa, and business owners, just like Ozzie and Caroline, right across this country. They might be small mechanic's shops, landscaping companies, small restaurants or small accounting firms. By themselves, they do not have the economies of scale to provide a workplace pension plan and, as a result, 60% of Canadian employees do not have one.

However, what if people like Ozzie and Caroline from La Porto A Casa, Sonny from Sonny's Manotick Garage and thousands of other small businesses that employ millions of people combined could pool their efforts and provide such a pension program for their employees?

Let us imagine if banks, insurance companies and existing pension plans, like the Ontario teachers' pension fund, could offer such a pooled service to employees of small businesses just like the ones I just finished describing. Such would provide an opportunity for the 60% of Canadians who currently lack a workplace pension fund to buy into one.

That is exactly what the bill before the House proposes to do. They would be called the “pooled registered pension plans”. They would be administratively simple and cost-effective, and they would provide mobility to the workers who travel between small employers on a fairly frequent basis. That would allow these businesses to come together and pool the costs and the risks associated with a pension fund for employees.

This is an excellent opportunity to allow working people to have greater participation in our economy and to set aside money that would be invested for their future. By the way, that money, when invested, is not simply hidden under somebody's bed. In fact, it is invested in other Canadian companies that then use it to hire people, buy machines and grow wealth and prosperity for other workers, creating a virtuous cycle.

The opposition has said that it opposes this idea. It does not believe that small businesses like La Porto A Casa and Sonny's gas station in Manotick should be allowed to pool their resources in order to create a pension fund opportunity for their employees. The reason the opposition does not like the idea is because it says that these funds would be invested in the stock market. That is partly true, but they could also be invested in real estate, bonds or treasury bills.

However, it is true that almost every successful pension fund in the world does invest in the stock market because stock markets grow and it is good when pension funds grow with them. In fact, all of the pension funds that the left of centre opposition claims to support are invested in the stock market. Let us take, for example, the Quebec pension plan, which is the province's equivalent of what we in English Canada call the CPP. It is widely invested in private sector businesses.

One business in which the Quebec pension plan is invested is Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. It is an oil sands company taking 100,000 barrels out of the Alberta oil sands every day. That would make it a perfect target for the NDP. The only problem is that the same oil sands company pays enough dividends into the Quebec pension fund to cover the retirement cheques of 1,100 workers every year. The opposition would raise taxes on that company, impose a carbon tax and raise taxes on profits. The only problem with that is that the same company can only pay benefits to the Quebec pension fund out of its after-tax profits, which means that if taxes go up, the dividends to pension funds go down.

Half of the Canada pension plan is invested in companies just like the one I mentioned already. It is invested in the stock market. Even public pension funds that are administered by government are invested in the private sector stock market. Let us take the defined benefit pension plans of, say, the Canada Post employees. The top five holdings in the Canada Post pension plan are Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Nova Scotia, Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., all banks and oil companies. The twin villains in every left wing storyline are the ones paying dividends into the pension funds of mail delivery workers and other employees of Canada Post who will rely on the profitability of those same businesses for their retirement.

The opposition does not believe that pension funds should be invested in the private sector. In fact, it does not think there should be a private sector at all. It believes in growing government and having government take over every sector of the economy. I will explain what I mean by that. Its leader has said that there is something called Dutch disease; that is to say that there are too many Canadians working in the energy sector and not working elsewhere. However, according to the S&P/TSX composite index of the Canadian Stock Exchange, the energy sector is actually not the biggest. The financial sector is. The problem is that the NDP does not like the financial sector either. One-third of the entire valuation of the TSX includes banks and other financial services sectors. The NDP does not like that one-third. Then we have the energy sector, which makes up one-quarter. The NDP does not like that either. Now, well over half of the value of the publicly-traded economy is in the crosshairs of a prospective NDP government.

The NDP is an opposition party that believes that government should control everything. There is a laboratory for that approach. It is called Greece. In Greece, the government debt is 160% the size of the entire economy. Its debt has now been downgraded to junk status. In Portugal, it is the same thing. Nine other Euro currency countries have also been downgraded. In Washington, where over the last several decades this kind of approach of big public spending has been tried, the government debt is now bigger than the entire U.S. economy and American taxpayers spend more on interest to the People's Republic of China than the People's Republic of China spends on its military.

On this side, we choose the Canadian way, a free market plan to create jobs and enable small businesses to provide opportunities for retirement security to their employees.

Therefore, in the interest of jobs, growth and long-term prosperity, I ask members to support the bill.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for having shared what I would call a completely unrealistic interpretation of reality. It was very entertaining, but alas, totally out of touch with reality. Allow me to explain.

The important thing to understand is that this government bill will force millions of Canadians to invest their savings against their will and take on the full risk of that investment in a series of private funds, without necessarily getting any guarantees about the quality of fund management.

In fact, that is already a problem. I would just like to point out to my colleague that, unfortunately, since the beginning of 2012, all stock exchanges have fallen by an average of 10%.

What does my colleague have to offer new retirees and those retiring in a year or two, other than an extremely high stress level that could end up forcing people to retire later than planned or to go back to work?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I must begin by correcting the error in the question. No one will be forced to join. It is a voluntary program. People will decide whether or not this plan works for them.

Furthermore, the member is attacking stock market investments, but all pension funds are invested in the stock market, even public pension funds.

I already mentioned that half of the Canada pension plan is invested in the stock market. There is no successful pension fund in the world that does not invest in the stock market and therefore there is not a single one of them that can survive and succeed unless businesses have strong after-tax profit. These are mathematical realities that one cannot help but see, even with ideological blinders on.

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

Mr. Speaker, I do not know about that last statement. The member's own pension plan, which he just qualified for, is pretty generous and avoids the markets. Perhaps my colleague would like to comment on that.

When he says that all opposition members are against this sort of concept, the member is overstretching it a bit. On this side of the House, we have said many times that we like the idea of pooled pensions. If we understand the concept of it, we get that. However, if we take it to its logical conclusion, we would go to a supplementary CPP system, which would then be the best investment machinery around for this type of thing.

I believe in what my colleague is saying, about the mobility of it, about the pooling and how if people pooled with others for their pension plan, that would make a greater investment. However, the specific program that the member talks of, which I am not totally against, has not worked in jurisdictions like Australia, which had problems with efficiency from 1997, as it was described.

Would the member not take the concept that he speaks of, the majority of which I agree with, into one of the greatest investment vehicles we have, which would be a supplementary CPP?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member stands and says that he is against the pension plan for members of Parliament, but I presume he is going to accept his unless he is going to announce the contrary today. Then he says that he is in favour of the concept of a pooled registered plan, but will vote against it. The one thing I have to respect about the Liberal Party is its ability to see all sides of every issue, because those members are on all sides of every issue.

On this side of the House, we take a clear stand. We are in favour of empowering small businesses in Canada to provide their employees with a pooled pension plan that would help them prepare for their retirement on a voluntary basis. That is where we stand.

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to explain to the House and the people of Canada how our government's new low-cost and accessible pooled registered pension plan will help millions of Canadians save for retirement. More specific, I would like to touch on how pooled pensions will benefit small businesses, which are the backbone of the economy, not only in my riding of Niagara West—Glanbrook but across this great land.

As a former small business owner, I know first hand how difficult it is to save for retirement. There is simply so much else to focus on. Small business owners wear many hats and often the most menial tasks take priority over thinking of retirement or how to save for it. Therefore, by pooling pension plans together, small business owners can pass on the burden of planning for retirement to a qualified and reliable body, freeing them up to focus on improving other aspects of their business, such as improving customer service or, more important, ensuring their survival in the world of free enterprise.

As a small business owner, I was very committed to providing financial assistance to my employees. For my part-timers, I offered thousands of dollars in scholarships. However, for my full-time and my key employees, who had already graduated or were no longer interested in attending university, I had to find other incentives. Unfortunately, pooled pension plans were not available back then, which would have provided me and fellow small business owners the opportunity to provide our employees with a pension package comparable to any large corporation.

I looked for ways to try and incentivize my staff to try and keep them around, because small business is very competitive. The only thing I could come up with was registered retirement savings plans, which were not a bad thing. The challenge was that they were very complicated to set up. As members can imagine, with a small business owner, with only five or six employees, trying to meet with financial investors and setting them up with staff is not always the easiest thing to do. Therefore, as a business owner, I really would have appreciated having something like this to take away some of the burden on me by being able to lock these funds in for employees who would use them at a later point in time.

What I did was set up some registered retirement savings plans wherein I matched some of the dollars that my key employees put in. The challenge was that they were not locked in for pensions. The money could be taken out at any time. The second issue was it was difficult to manage. Members can imagine having 10, 20, 30 or 40 employees all trying to figure out, with a financial adviser, what was happening and trying to make their own decisions when, quite frankly, a pension plan or some kind of professional management would have been helpful. Therefore, from experience, I understand how important a plan like this would be.

Until Bill C-25 is passed, small business owners will continue to worry about the possibility of their employees being attracted to a larger corporation that offers a more attractive pension plan. This is worrisome to small business owners whose employees form the core of their small business, much more so than the case of large corporations. Small businesses of 5, 6 to 10 people cannot afford the costs of employee turnover. When they lose key employees, it hurts in a big way. In this regard, pooled pensions will benefit small business owners by increasing employee dependability, thereby decreasing the time, burden and costs associated with hiring.

Equally beneficial to small business, pooled pensions will allow millions of Canadians access to a workplace pension for the first time in their lives.

Pooled pensions will improve the range of retirement savings options to Canadians by allowing individuals who are not currently participating in a pension plan, such as the self-employed, to make use of this new type of pension plan. Pooled pensions will enable more people to benefit from the lower investment management costs that result from membership in a large pooled pension plan. Further, pooled pensions will allow for people's accumulated benefits to move with them from job to job, all the while ensuring that their funds are invested in the best interests of plan members.

With our baby-boomer generation nearing the age of retirement, coupled with the ongoing global financial crisis, our government has deemed this time appropriate for the development of pooled pensions. The issue of retirement income security is very important to our government. It is for this reason that the joint federal-provincial working group was established in May 2009 to undertake an in-depth examination of retirement income adequacy in Canada.

The working group found that overall the Canadian retirement income system was performing well and providing Canadians with an adequate standard of living upon retirement. However, some Canadian households, especially modest and middle-income households, were living with the risk of not saving enough for retirement.

After over a year of exhaustive research, led by our finance ministers, our government agreed to pursue a framework for pooled registered pension plans.

Pooled pensions are designed to address the lack of low-cost, large-scale retirement savings options available to many Canadians. Many Canadians continue to struggle taking advantage of the savings opportunities offered to them through individual structures like RRSPs. For example, the average Canadian has over $18,000 in unused RRSP room.

In addition, many Canadians can only access a workplace pension plan if their employer offers one. Many employers, especially small and medium-sized businesses, do not want the legal administrative burden of offering a pension plan. As a result, over 60% of Canadians do not have a workplace pension. There is not only the legal issues. The fact remains that it is almost impossible for small businesses to join a pension.

The design features of pooled pensions remove a lot of the traditional barriers that might have kept some employers from offering pension plans to their employees.

The design of these plans would be straightforward to allow for simple enrolment and management. A third-party pooled pension administrator will take on most of the responsibilities that employers bear in the existing pension plans, including the administrative and legal duties associated with administering a pension plan.

Pooled pensions will offer Canadians greater purchasing power, allowing them the opportunity to benefit from greater economies of scale. Achieving lower prices means that Canadians will benefit from greater returns on their savings and put more money in their pockets when they retire. Pooled pensions are intended to be largely harmonized from province to province, which also lowers administrative costs.

Pooled pensions will result in large pooled funds that will enable plan members to benefit from lower investment management cost associated with such funds. The design of these plans will be straightforward and are intended to be largely harmonized across jurisdictions, which would facilitate lower administrative costs.

Pooled pensions will assist Canadians in meeting their retirement savings objectives by providing access to the new low-cost pension option. Through the pooled nature of pooled pension investments and the auto enrolment of employees, it is expected that members will be able to benefit from greater economies of scale and lower costs compared to small, singular employee group RRSPs. Since pooled pensions will be subject to pension standard rules, unlike group RRSPs, the management will be held to a higher standard.

Our government decided not to expand the Canadian pension plan because changes to the CPP would require the agreement of least two-thirds of the provinces with at least two-thirds of the population. Federal, provincial and territorial ministers have discussed a CPP expansion, but there has been no agreement. Our government understands that the fragile economic recovery is not the right time to increase CPP contributions, which would be required if CPP were expanded.

That being said, moving forward on pooled pensions does not preclude future changes to CPP.

Our government continues to improve Canada's retirement income system. Budget 2011 announced a new guaranteed income supplement top-up benefit for our valuable seniors. Seniors with low or no income other than the old age security and the GIS would receive additional annual benefits of up to $600 for single seniors and $840 for couples.

In particular, since 2006, our government has increased the age credit amount by $1,000 in 2006 and by another $1,000 in 2009. We have doubled the maximum amount of income eligible for the pension income credit to $2,000, introduced pension income splitting and increased the age limit for the maturing pensions in registered retirement savings plans to 71 from 69 years of age.

Overall, our government has provided about $2.3 billion in additional annual targeted tax relief to seniors and pensioners through measures such as pension income splitting, increases in the age credit amount and the doubling of the maximum amount of income eligible for the pension income credit.

In addition, budget 2008 introduced a tax-free savings account, which is of particular benefit to seniors because it helps them to meet their ongoing savings needs with a tax efficient way after they are no longer able to contribute to an RRSP.

We have also made several other important improvements to specific retirement income supports. Budget 2008 increased the amount that could be earned before the GIS would be reduced to $3,500, so GIS recipients would be able to keep more of their hard-earned money without any reduction in GIS benefits. Budget 2008 also increased flexibility for seniors and older workers with federally-regulated pension assets that were held in life income funds.

We all win if we make it easier to plan for our future. Pooled pensions would remove the barriers that make it impossible for my business and other small businesses like it to offer the ability to be part of the pension plan for their employees. This is a significant and timeless solution. I am proud of our government for taking steps to provide this opportunity for Canadians.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding, hundreds of Stadacona plant workers have, for the most part, lost $100,000 or more of their pensions as a result of the losses sustained by their private pension fund. This means that their retirement pensions could be cut in half. It is a real tragedy.

I am amazed by the government's failure to consider the risks arising from the proliferation of registered pension plans, given that a large number of them are already experiencing difficulties. The other thing that is absolutely absurd is the refusal to increase contributions to the Canada pension plan on the pretext that it would be too onerous for our workers, businesses and communities. And yet, we will have to find the money to contribute to the registered pension plans.

I will draw a parallel with the mainly private health insurance system in the United States. Private insurance companies now have such high premiums, because of the supposed competition, that even large businesses are finding it impossible to provide health coverage for their workers.

How can my colleague guarantee that Canadian pension funds will not go down the same slippery slope?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the question was. There was some talk there about health care, large corporations, pensions and mismanagement.

As we look at the bill, Canadians, who normally would not have a chance to contribute to a pension plan because of the size of the companies for which they work, would now have the opportunity to do so. As I said, small businesses are the largest employers around our country. For small businesses that hire six, seven, eight or ten people, it is cost prohibitive to set up any kind of pension plan. This legislation aims to pool pensions so that individuals can not only contribute to a pension plan, where otherwise they could not, but they can also take it with them. It is also locked in so that they would not have access to it until retirement age.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, for viewers who might be watching and listening to this important issue, we recognize that this is a tool, albeit a rather small tool that might assist a good number of Canadians. However, what we were really hoping to see come from the government was the larger picture. How will we be able to make some of the changes to the CPP, OAS and our guaranteed income supplement? There is an obligation for the federal government to negotiate with the provinces to try to enhance those pension programs, which are the fundamental programs that most, if not all, Canadians are very dependent on.

With regard to this specific legislation, could the member indicate to what degree Ottawa has actually received confirmation from which provinces that are prepared to act on this? Are we talking 50% of the provinces on side or 100% of the provinces on side? Could the member indicate how many provinces are on side with the legislation today?

[Dean Allison, Conservative, Niagara West—Glanbrook, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I think what the member is talking about here is apples and oranges. There are a couple of different things going on here. We understand that the CPP is still something that is happening. It will continue to go on and there may be further negotiations. However, this would add another suite of products that would give options to small business owners.

When it comes to pension, that is federal and provincial legislation and it is dealt with in a way that we talk about what is required for people to put in. What we are talking about here is setting up something that will add to the suite of services the government has already delivered on. We have introduced pension splitting and tax free savings accounts. This is meant to complement a number of initiatives that we have already looked at in giving employers and employees options to save for their retirement as they move forward.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca.

Earlier, some members mentioned the fact that people may be watching us on television. I hope they have something else to do, because today's debate in the House is really going nowhere.

This is yet another bill with a rather confusing title. This bill, I believe, deals with pooled registered pension plans, but it really deals with savings, not pension plans. That makes me think that the people who work for the government legislators and think up the titles must also work for the paint companies like Sico, where long, evocative names are given to very simple things. If one day they brought us a bill proposing to cut down all the trees, they would call it “Prioritizing new species of vegetation.”

This bill does contain good intentions for small employers and small businesses. In itself, that could be praiseworthy, but the reality is different. I was listening to the member opposite talk about his favourite business, saying that it has the best tartufo or tiramisu or cheesecake around; he talked about the muffler repair shop near his house, and all these small businesses. It was wonderful: what a great story. However, I have a tendency to think he was talking about some other local businesses, for example, the local branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, which made a profit of $5.7 billion in the last quarter, the Toronto Dominion Bank, which made a profit of $4.5 billion, or Scotiabank, where the profit was $4.3 billion. I could list a few of those.

We could believe that our colleagues across the aisle are acting in good faith. We could believe that they are listening to the little guys. Unfortunately, experience proves that they have a natural tendency to listen to the big guys, the big corporations, and neglect the little guys quite often. “Unfortunately”—that is a long word that reminds me of a five-letter word: Aveos. We cannot say that the government looks out for the little guy when we see how it behaved in that labour dispute.

When I say little guy, I mean the vast majority of the population. I am talking about people whose jobs do not provide them with very good protection plans.

Usually in society we come up with plans and programs to promote the common good, programs such as the Canada pension plan or the Quebec pension plan. What strikes me is that when it comes to the common good for the little guy, the government just throws something together. Again, it prioritized a solution by throwing something together with its buddies: it says it will do one thing, a good thing, but then it turns around and does another. I keep saying this has to stop.

People are judged on their intentions. The intention of the Conservative government, generally speaking, is always to favour the big corporations. It wants Canada to be a good place to do business, big business. As we speak, it is the little guy who is paying for it and that is sad.

In the past six years, the Conservatives have done absolutely nothing to boost retirement security for Canadians. In every one of their interventions—unfortunately, they often intervene in labour disputes—the thing that ends up on the chopping block is retirement security, the security of the working class. Bill C-25 is just another half measure and that is what they are developing.

Canadians deserve better than that. We will not settle for this. It is not necessarily a problem, but it is not enough. Throwing out a few crumbs in order to move on to something else is not good enough for us.

I think it is also very important to bear in mind that, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, most Canadian workers do not have RRSPs. Why? Because they cannot afford them. Last year, only 31% of eligible Canadians contributed to an RRSP, and unused contribution room exceeds $500 billion. When I was preparing my last tax return, the amount that I could have contributed to an RRSP was huge. I do not think I could contribute that much, even if I wanted to. This example simply illustrates how serious the contribution problem is, even though we have a public program that works very well and guarantees some financial security for everyone. However, this government does not seem to care about everyone equally.

Someone mentioned the fact that the Australians tested the same thing 10 years ago. In the end, that initiative did not work. It did not meet expectations. What does the government want, apart from asking its friends on Bay Street if they feel like investing a few billion dollars in this, just for the fun of it? It is unfortunate, but the Conservatives seem to just do whatever they like. They do not consult anyone. They have no interest in consultation. They go ahead with their own ideas. One might think that they have great ideas, but no, they do not have any strokes of genius. They have not heard the voice of God. They simply came along with their biased opinion that their friends are going to like this.

That is what is happening. They are working for the upper class. This is unfair, because this government was elected by the public, by ordinary people. We are not talking about giving even more crazy tax breaks to the big oil companies or banks; we are talking about protecting ordinary people.

A five-letter word is flashing in my mind: Aveos. I hope that one day, the Conservatives will lie awake at night thinking of that word: Aveos. The people at that company lost everything, but the Conservatives do not care at all. That is unacceptable. How can they even introduce a bill that talks about protecting retirees, when these people were run over by a tractor and were told that it was no big deal, that the bosses were right. That is shameful, but that is a whole other story.

In passing, I would like to mention what a number of journalists think, because we are not the only ones who believe that a public plan would certainly be a better option. For example, the Conference Board of Canada has a disturbing statistic: 1.6 million seniors live in poverty and 12 million Canadians do not have a pension plan. According to the OECD, the Canada Pension Plan and the Régie des rentes du Québec are relatively inadequate and other countries have guarantees and much more generous public pension plans.

In the United States—they like it when we talk about the United States—maximum social security benefits are about $30,000 a year. Here, they are about $12,000 a year. Is that not a nice parallel? Do they not care? It is too bad, but they have erred so much in the past that I simply do not trust them. It is unfortunate, but that is also what the vast majority of Canadians think.

I must stop there, but I encourage my colleagues opposite to preach by example, to show some interest in the common good, an interest in consultation. Then, we would be happy to work with them.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment]

Mr. Speaker, many small employers do not have the ability to offer pension plans because of two key things: the fiduciary responsibility associated with managing a pension plan and the administrative costs. Those are two very burdensome issues that employers would face. The PRPP would give small businesses, which would not otherwise be able to offer a large pension plan or participate in a group RRSP, the tool they need.

If we do not implement this, how would my colleague address the fiduciary responsibility and administrative cost burden?

Small businesses are often at a disadvantage from a recruitment perspective because they cannot offer pension plans. Since the member has signalled that he will not vote for this, how would he rectify the recruitment issue that this legislation would address?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

It seems we agree that introducing more tools to improve pensions for small business employees is a good idea. However, the truth is that the Conservatives will not budge on the rest. The simple solution is to enhance our public pension plans, but they seem to be allergic to anything that would require major state intervention when it comes to meeting ordinary people's basic needs.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, like the hon. member here, I would really like to see a proper CPP enhanced, brought up to date and modernized to work better.

I find it fascinating that this group across the aisle wants to trust, again, the bankers and the brokers in Bimmers who have caused our problems and encourage Canadians to utilize those pools, many of which already exist, instead of a proper CPP.

My question for the hon. member is, if the members on the other side trade their gold-plated MP pensions for private pooled plans, will he join me in that?

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the independent MP over in the corner. My colleague changed his political stripes.

Once again, it is very clear that the government is not interested in funding pension plans. Earlier, we were told how obvious it is that everyone wants to own stocks.

Sure that is obvious. Of course. Unfortunately, that is how finance is done nowadays, and we saw how that turned out. My colleague was right to point out that, in 2008, those people played with real people's money and savings. I know people who lost 40% of their retirement savings. That means that instead of living for 20 years off their retirement savings, they can live for just 12 years.

[Alexandrine Latendresse, NDP, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question regarding the last comment by my colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher.

The Conservatives' changes to employment insurance will create a huge machine to monitor all available jobs in Canada and to ensure that there is not one unemployed person. If there is a job available somewhere, the unemployed person will have to take that job.

This measure will be expensive, but they still want to implement it. And yet, the Conservatives are saying that they do not want to make any changes to the current pension system that will improve it.

I would like him to comment on the apparent contradiction between these two positions.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have risen to thank the member sitting next to me. I thank her for the question.

The problem lies strictly with their intention. Their intention is the problem. The Conservatives decided to go to Davos to tell their big buddies that the Conservatives are doing a good job of governing Canada and to come and invest here because the public does not call the shots.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-25 at third reading. I am very happy to do so. I know that all members in the House share the common goal of making sure that all Canadians have security in their retirement. However, I am rising to speak against the pooled registered pension plan scheme for many reasons.

One of the reasons is that it would not actually guarantee a pension. As many on my side have pointed out, we should not be calling this a pension plan. Instead, it is a savings scheme. The second reason is that it would put the burden solely on employees and would not require any contribution from employers. It would allow employers to say they are doing something for employees' retirement, but they will pay for it. In that sense, the style of the plan is a bit deceptive.

It would not be indexed to inflation. When we combine that with no cap on administrative fees or costs, it means that the risks would be entirely borne by the employees. Therefore, when it came time for employees to retire, there would be no guarantee that they would even get back payments equally valued to the contributions they made.

How do we know that? We have seen the evidence from the Australian plan, which was put in place more than a decade ago, similar to this, called the Australian super fund. In the study of that plan by the Australian government recently, it showed exactly what I said, that the benefits were only equal to the rate of inflation. In fact, the employees who contributed were simply treading water and not really planning for secure retirement.

I have heard members on the other side ask why on earth I would oppose what is another tool in the tool box for retirement savings. I would first say that I am worried it would become another tool in the tool box of investment planners and banks to make more money for their long-term security instead of making more money for the people who actually contribute to those plans. Their tool box is already full, from my point of view, and there is no need to give them another profit source as I think this plan would obviously do.

Is it a real tool for employees to save for their retirement? It would certainly take money out of their cheques. Most families are struggling as it is just to make ends meet by providing housing, putting food on the table and providing for their kids. The vast majority of employees do not have any spare money to risk in a plan like this. Their money would be much better invested in an expanded Canada pension plan. The Canada pension plan is not a theory or ideology but a proven plan that has shown it has lower costs. Why does it have lower costs? Because it spreads out the administrative costs over the entire population. It is a plan that has lower risk. Why does it have lower risk? Because it spreads the risk across the entire population and provides a defined benefit indexed to inflation.

The CPP has a couple of other benefits that we do not often talk about. One of them is that increasing benefits in the CPP would ultimately reduce costs for government because it would reduce the demand for GIS payments. In other words, if people had been allowed to put money into a plan that would provide them a secure retirement and pay for it themselves, they would not be dependent on welfare at the end of their lives in terms of the GIS. That is no criticism of those who collect GIS. Most Canadians have not had the opportunity of having secure jobs with workplace pension plans that pay enough to provide secure income. The easy way to do that is to expand the Canada pension plan.

This has been on the public agenda since 1996 when the NDP government of British Columbia first put an expanded CPP on the table and tried to convince governments at that time. If it had begun with a slow increase in the contributions made by both workers and employers back in 1996, we would be in a place where the CPP would be providing double the benefits it provides now. We would have made a great dent in the problem of seniors poverty. It is still not too late. The NDP campaigned in the last election to do just that: begin with modest increases in the contributions by workers and employers and, over time, double the benefits that are being paid out by the CPP. Again, workers would be paying for their own secure retirement. It is not a welfare program. There would be no cost to government.

The Canada pension plan along with its parallel, the Quebec pension plan, have been major contributors to helping end poverty among seniors. As I said, it is an earned pension with all the dignity and self-esteem that comes with having provided for one's own retirement.

I would point out they are also very good for small business. We are talking about small businesses that are too small, really, to run their own workplace pension plan, that could not bear those administrative costs, that cannot recruit, as the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment talked about, that cannot recruit employees because they cannot offer the same kind of benefits.

Yet, if the benefits under the Canada pension plan were increased, it would level that recruitment playing field for small businesses, because people would be earning an adequate pension in all jobs across the country.

Originally the CPP was designed, along with the QPP, to be supplemented by private pension plans, so the original plan was never meant to provide the full retirement income. It was thought at the time that workplace pension plans and other schemes would fill the gap to bring Canadians up to an adequate retirement income.

What we have learned is that that has not happened for several reasons. One of those, of course, is that more than 12 million Canadians lack any workplace pension plan of any kind. Even those who do have plans are quite often enrolled in plans which are not portable. We all know the days when people go to work for one company and stay there for 30 years are becoming more and more rare. Even if they had a private pension plan, when they are forced to change jobs, people often have to start over in a new private plan or cash out their benefits at that time.

The second problem with workplace pension plans that we have seen in the last years of economic crisis is that they are not secure. When a company goes bankrupt, unfortunately, those with disability pensions and those with workplace pensions are almost last in that line of creditors.

For that reason, the NDP has proposed, as another way of securing retirement incomes, the bankruptcy laws in this country need to be amended to place disability pensions and retirement pensions at the front of the line of creditors in the case of bankruptcy, so that those who have made contributions themselves would have their pension secured before the other creditors of those bankrupt companies. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for action on that very important point.

The Canadian government, under the Liberals, did recognize that retirement savings were inadequate. The government came up with the registered retirement savings plan to allow people to voluntarily put money into a plan to help supplement the CPP in their retirement. That is a good idea in theory, but the problem with that plan is that because of the high cost of living, the high cost of housing and other difficulties in making ends meet, only 31% of those who are eligible to contribute to RRSPs are actually able to do so. That means that this great solution to fill that gap has not been successful.

More recently the federal government came up with the idea of tax-free savings accounts. Once again, there is an implicit recognition that there is a gap in retirement income for Canadians. So the tax-free savings accounts were set up. Only about 41% of Canadians have established a tax-free savings account. Most of those say that they are not using it to save for retirement.

Most interesting to me, over half of those who have tax-free savings accounts earn more than $100,000 a year in income. They are obviously already able to take care of themselves when it comes to retirement. Most Canadians, obviously, do not earn anywhere near this figure and do not have extra money at the end of every month to put into a tax-free savings account.

The vast majority of Canadians are dependent on the CPP for their own retirement income. When we look at the benefit levels of $12,000 per year, it is clearly not enough. As I mentioned, it was not designed to be enough. It was designed to be supplemented by these other programs which have failed over time to do so.

Now it is time to revamp the CPP and QPP to make sure they provide an adequate retirement income, that we share the risk, that we spread this out over everyone in society, and make sure that everyone is secure in their income.

Clearly there are some other measures that are needed to attack the problem of inadequate retirement income. I mentioned amending the bankruptcy legislation in this country, and I think that is very important.

The NDP also promised that when we are government we will increase the GIS to immediately lift every senior out of poverty at a relatively modest cost.

Why not proceed with the CPP? The government says the provinces are not onside. It requires co-operation to change the CPP and the QPP. As far as I can tell, only one province was really opposed. I have seen no real effort from the federal government to bring the provinces onside to expand the CPP.

In conclusion, I would just like to remind members of the House that all Canadians would benefit from an expansion of the CPP, not just the fortunate few.

It would benefit small business. It would benefit workers changing jobs. In particular, it would benefit those who work hard all their lives in low-wage jobs and are not able to save for their retirement.

I urge the House, rather than create this new plan, which would do nothing to solve the problem, to turn instead to an expansion of the CPP-QPP program.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech by my colleague across the way. I have a couple of comments to make and then a couple of questions.

First, the TFSA was not necessarily intended for retirement. It was intended for a whole host of things. I would consider 41% uptake to be pretty extraordinary.

The member talked about expanding CPP and QPP. I assume he realizes that would mean more investment in the stock market for those apparently hated things like banks and resource companies. Does he think that the dividends that Royal Bank, for example, is putting into his QPP are a bad thing, when he seems to want more of them?

Early in his remarks he called PRPPs a bad plan because people would be forced to pay for their own retirement. A little later in his comments he said CPP was a good thing because people are paying for their own retirement, with the pride that brings. I am wondering if he could explain that apparent contradiction to me.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, my point was that being forced to contribute to a pooled pension plan, which is risky and would have no defined pension at the end of it, is the problem. When people contribute to the Canada pension plan, they have a defined benefit and the risks are shared out over society.

I have nothing against the stock market except when the risks are borne by individuals who do not have an adequate income to begin with. Then it is not a good solution for saving for their retirement.

The thing that works is just the thing the member is actually suggesting in the pooled plan. When people pool their resources into a larger plan then it spreads the risk. That is why the CPP is a better way to save for retirement than leaving the risk with individuals or very small pooled plans.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we in the Liberal Party agree in essence with regard to the CPP and its benefits. This program has been in place for generations. It was a Liberal Party initiative many years ago that made people realize how important pension plans are for seniors, and that is the reason we established a CPP program.

We would like to see the government demonstrate more leadership on that particular file. The government needs to meet with the provinces and work out a better agreement so that workers today will be able to retire with more money going forward.

I come from a province where there is an NDP administration. That NDP administration talked about the labour crocus fund as a form for retirees to invest in. It promoted the crocus fund. It is quite different from the pooled pension plan that is being proposed, but the concept of seniors using their private money to invest in a venture capital fund was something it saw as a positive thing even though there were management fees and so forth.

Would the federal NDP have opposed a venture fund with tax incentives for seniors to invest in that type of approach? Does it have to be CPP or broke?

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I note that the Liberals have 20/20 hindsight and vision back to the things they accomplished many years ago. I just wish they had the same foresight at this time.

In supporting the pooled retirement savings plan, a big mistake is being made in terms of public policy. We are telling people they are going to get something that is not there, something that is not secure, something that will not deliver in the long run.

The member asked if I would support seniors investing in venture capital. Only wealthy seniors can afford to take those kinds of risks. It is called venture capital for a reason. Average people who have worked hard all their lives in an average job cannot afford to risk their retirement on those higher risk ventures. They need something secure that will provide them with a defined benefit to take care of them in their old age, and that is the genius of CPP and QPP. They have shown us success over time. That is the reason I think they are the solution to this problem.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, as a former small business owner, I wish to speak in support of the pooled registered pension plan.

In these tough economic times, our Conservative government continues to work hard to create jobs for Canadians. Naturally, one way of doing this is to support job creators. What do I mean by this? I mean supporting small and medium-sized businesses.

I am proud to say that this is one of the great aspects of Bill C-25, an act that would implement the federal framework for pooled registered pension plans.

The bill would remove traditional barriers that might have kept small and medium-sized businesses from offering a pension plan to their employees in the past.

Members may ask what are traditional barriers. One is responsibility. Under the PRPP framework, the fiduciary responsibility related to the management of pension plans would be shifted from the employer to a licensed third-party professional administrator.

The second traditional barrier is the administration of the pension. Under the PRPP framework, the administrative burden of the employer would be reduced. Again, most of this burden would be shifted to a licensed third-party professional administrator.

With these significant barriers removed, employers would be able to offer a workplace pension plan to their employees for the first time. In fact, the business community has already commented on how the reduced administrative burden would be of great benefit. For example, Thomas Lambert, the CEO of Canadian Multicultural Radio said:

The PRPP is just the kind of option we've been searching for. With the savings on the administrative costs we can incentivize our staff towards better retirements savings.

By offering a low-cost and administratively simple pension plan, employers would have a new tool to attract and retain skilled employees. I ask hon. members if they would not like to work for a company that offers a low-cost pension option to its employees, a pension option that aims to leave more money in their pocket when they retire. According to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, that is exactly what PRPPs would do. It said:

...(PRPPs) would be a great option to attract new talent to our business. A pension plan draws a lot of the skilled people that we need to the larger corporations and this would be a nice edge to add to a great business.

There is even more. The introduction of PRPPs would be of great benefit in the self-employed medical profession. Here is what the Ontario Medical Association had to say:

The creation of pooled registered pension plans (PRPPs) levels the playing field by providing the self-employed, including physicians, with better access to additional savings opportunities that have up until now been unavailable.

Mr. Speaker, I am just reminded that I will be sharing my time with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

Allow me this opportunity to explain how PRPPs would help these employees and self-employed Canadians achieve their retirement goals.

One of the great features of a PRPP is auto-enrolment. Where an employer offers a PRPP, all employees would be automatically enrolled. Not only would this increase participation, but it would also encourage more Canadians to save for their retirement.

Another great feature is portability. This means that when employees changed jobs, they could take their PRPP with them from job to job.

Another innovative feature of the PRPP is that the contributions by members would be locked in. This would ensure that plan members would have savings when they retired.

I would be remiss if I did not talk about one of the major benefits of the PRPP, and that is its low costs. It is clear that the opposition members do not fully understand this concept. Please allow me a moment to explain its key feature to them.

Essentially, PRPPs would facilitate low cost through their scale and design by achieving certain economies of scale. It does not matter whether a person manages $1 million or $100 million; the effort is the same.

As I mentioned earlier, PRPPs would have a broad-based availability. By pooling all these pension savings, the cost of administering the pension funds would be spread over a larger group of people. This would enable plan members to benefit from the lower investment management costs that are typically associated with the average larger mutual funds.

The low cost feature of PRPPs is something that stakeholders around the country are raving about. I will share with hon. members some of the feedback following our broadly based consultation. According to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business:

A new voluntary, low-cost...retirement savings mechanism will allow more employers, employees, and the self-employed to participate in a pension plan....

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation comments:

Canadians will be able to save more for retirement with this new pension plan. People saving for retirement will enjoy lower costs and more flexibility through their working lives.

Unfortunately, instead of jumping on board with this great incentive, the opposition members would rather expand the Canada pension plan. Clearly, the opposition members are not interested in creating jobs. They are interested in taxing the job creators.

Make no mistake; our Conservative government would never take such a reckless and irresponsible position. Our government understands that the last thing job creators need in a time of global economic uncertainty is another tax hike.

Unlike the opposition, our Conservative government understands it is tax reduction that facilitates the creation of jobs and economic growth. That is why in our economic action plan 2012, our government is committed to extending hiring credits to small and medium-sized businesses for another year.

Do members know what this would mean? This would mean jobs, growth and long-term prosperity. On the economy, our record is clear. Since July 2009, more than 750,000 net new jobs have been created. That is a result Canadians appreciate.

With the passing of Bill C-25, federally regulated workers as well as those in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and the Yukon would be able to take advantage of PRPPs.

I would hope that every province would pass legislation to implement the PRPP as soon as possible, so that all Canadians would be able to access the low-cost, broad-based pension plan.

The legislation is a win-win for both employers and employees. By introducing the PRPP, we would be strengthening Canada's retirement income system, a system that is viewed around the world with envy.

When it comes to PRPPs, our government is on board, small and medium-sized businesses are on board and, most important, Canadians are on board. The only real question is: Why are the members of the opposition not on board?

I would encourage all members of the House to stand and support the swift passage of Bill C-25. The sooner PRPPs are available, the sooner more Canadians could start saving for their retirement.

[Raymond Côté, NDP, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to consult my colleague on the so-called collective aspect of the pooled registered pension plans.

The only collective aspect I see is a collectivization much like that enforced under Stalin more than 80 years ago, in other words, a general misery shared among those who already have very little means, who have limited wages and who work for small businesses that are not on a very strong footing.

Can my colleague explain the magic formula whereby employees of these small businesses will manage to contribute to this retirement tool the government is proposing without becoming completely impoverished? We know that Canadians currently have $500 billion in unused RRSP contribution room and that this has been the case for a long time. People do not have the means to use these savings vehicles.

Where is the solution? What will this do other than make people poor?

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, let me say that in our society we are quite unlike that of Stalin, unlike a communist state where it is a totally planned economy. We do not have a totally planned economy. We have an economy that allows businesspeople to exercise their entrepreneurial spirit, thereby achieving the best they can for their employees and for the economy in general.

What the member opposite should know is that there are many ways for people to achieve retirement. One way is through their principal residence that they would have built and renovated as they contributed to its mortgage.

Another way is if people are lucky enough to have a company pension plan. That is fine, but if they do not have that, like most small and medium-sized businesses, this is what the pooled registered pension plan would do.

The member mentioned that the RRSP is another tool that only the rich can afford. That is not true. I think what we are doing is giving the employees or the individual businesspeople that option to decide how they want to save their money. Certainly the tax-free savings account is another option we have provided.

There is an array of tools people can use to plan for their own pension.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind my colleague across the way that in his speech, basically, he illustrates that all the opposition are against this type of measure, which is not true at all. I certainly do understand why this is in place. The only thing I would say is that it is just a small tool in the shed that we can use. I suggest we should go a little further, given the situation that society finds itself in and the imperative of trying to find stable income in the retirement years.

However, it does not come without some problems. There are other examples around the world; for example, the Australian example. Here is what was written about the program in Australia from 1997. It said:

...total assets in the system have grown substantially through contributions, but net earnings from investments were relatively low. Despite the presumed role of competition, the investment performance of the system continued to be restrained by high fees and costs.

That is from the similar system in Australia. I wonder if my colleague would comment as to how this program would not do that.

[Chungsen Leung, Conservative, Willowdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it seems like the member is only focused on Australia. I would suggest that if he were to look at the provident fund of Singapore and some of the pension funds in Japan and Taiwan, he would find that there is exactly that, where they issue an array of products for employees to participate in.

One of the problems with a centralized mega-fund, as is the case with the CPP, is that one is confined by legislation and, therefore, must invest in very conservative investment instruments. When this is opened up to a more open society that reflects the way our changing world economy and financial system is moving, the individual professional investor who can take advantage of tools like derivatives, commodity investments, options and so on, would be in a better position to buy you better growth in your pension plan.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Before resuming debate, I would remind all hon. members to direct their comments and questions to the Chair rather than to their colleagues.

Resuming debate. The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs.

[Eve Adams, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the hon. colleagues across the aisle and the NDP members just do not seem to get it. They continue to advocate for something that is neither feasible nor has the support perceived.

I am talking about their proposal to double the Canada pension plan. There are several problems with this proposal. I will outline them for the NDP and see if it can be convinced once and for all that doubling the CPP is simply not practical.

Any change to the Canada pension plan is subject to a formula specified in the legislation. In case the NDP did not know, I mean the legislation governing the Canada pension plan. The legislation clearly stipulates that the CPP can only be amended by a consensus of two-thirds of the provinces, representing two-thirds of the population.

At the 2010 finance ministers' meeting, a number of provinces had strong objections to expanding CPP benefits. However, the ministers made a unanimous decision. They unanimously decided to set up a framework for pooled registered pensions plans.

Unlike the NDP's proposal, which does not have the support of the provinces, the decision to move forward with pooled registered pensions plans was unanimous. That is not the only problem with the NDP plan. To expand CPP benefits or, in the NDP's case, to double them, we would have to raise contribution rates.

Higher contribution rates would mean higher payroll costs for small and medium-sized businesses and higher premiums for workers and the self-employed. Unlike the NDP, our government remains focused on the economy. This means focusing on job creation and economic growth and Canada's long-term prosperity. Our government does not believe that now is the time to jeopardize Canada's fragile economic recovery by imposing higher costs on job creators.

The House might be interested to hear that many other groups share our government's philosophy that expanding the CPP in these turbulent economic times is the wrong choice.

For example, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, CFIB, for every 1% increase in CPP premiums beyond the current 9.9% tax rate, it would cost 220,000 person years of employment and force wages down roughly 2.5% in the long run. For those who want to double the CPP, they might be interested to know that, according to CFIB calculations, to double CPP benefits would kill 1.2 million person years of employment in the short term.

All these so-called solutions proposed by the NDP would be detrimental to Canada's economic performance. They would result in lower economic growth and lower job creation. This would mean more unemployed Canadians, a sort of the NDP way.

Members can rest assured that our Conservative government will not engage in such a reckless plan. Our government has a strong record of job creation and job growth. In fact, I am pleased to say that, since July 2009, over 750,000 net new jobs have been created in Canada. That is a result that Canadians appreciate and a result that the residents of Mississauga—Brampton South appreciate.

It is important to remember that Bill C-25 represents the federal portion of the PRPP framework. In order to make this available to all Canadians, the provinces must put in place their own PRPP legislation. Once that happens, PRPPs will be a key element to Canada's retirement income system.

However, my constituents may be denied the opportunity to partake in a PRPP. Unfortunately, the McGuinty government has indicated that it may tie the introduction of PRPPs to an expanded CPP. Simply put, such a decision serves only to deny hard-working Ontarians of a low-cost, broad-based workplace pension plan.

Guess what? Many others feel the same way. This is what the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association think of Mr. McGuinty's plan. In their words:

We do not support the concept that PRPP implementation should be tied to CPP enhancements. Given the time and processes involved in making any changes to CPP, this would only serve to delay an initiative that, in its own right, is viable, innovative and beneficial to Ontarians.

They go on to say:

It is time for Ontario now to step up to ensure that Ontario residents, particularly those who work for small and medium-sized businesses, can reap the benefits of a low-cost, accessible pension plan.

Why is the McGuinty government denying Ontario residents and my neighbours the ability to save for their retirement? Perhaps it is because, like the NDP, it does not understand how PRPPs work.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The time for government orders has expired. The hon. parliamentary secretary will have four minutes remaining for her speech when this matter returns before the House.

Bill C-25—Time Allocation Motion

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

moved:

That, in relation to C-25, An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts, not more than five further hours shall be allotted to the consideration at the third reading stage of the bill; and

at the expiry of the five hours, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, if required for the purpose of this order, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the said bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to Standing Order 67(1) there will be a 30-minute question period. We will try to keep the questions and comments to about a minute and the responses to a similar length of time to accommodate as many people as possible.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is with no great joy that I rise today to again address questions to the government about the need to invoke closure and shut down debate in the House. A record is being set. This is the 24th time the government has invoked such a motion to shut down debate and discussion in Parliament, the very name of which means a place where members discuss things.

Just because the government has the power to do this, which it does in its majority position, does not mean that it should invoke this power with such frequency and, if I may suggest, such joy. To continue to shut down discussions on such important things as pensions before there can be an actual debate about it shows a certain lack of courage by the government.

I will read a quote in my question for the parliamentary secretary. The Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages stated:

Mr. Speaker, here we go again. This is a very important public policy question that is very complex and we have the arrogance of the government in invoking closure again. When we look at the Liberal Party [which was in power at the time] on arrogance it is like looking at the Grand Canyon. It is this big fact of nature that we cannot help but stare at.

That is what the Conservatives used to believe when they were in opposition about invoking closure on important public policy debates.

If the government has the courage of its convictions and believes that it has the evidence on its side, why the need, for the 24th time, to invoke closure on Canada's Parliament? Why the need to shut down debate, to shut down open and transparent government for the 24th time?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, we realize the urgency of getting this pooled registered pension plan in place because the provinces, frankly, are waiting for it. Quebec is one province that has a large number of people who do not have a workplace pension plan at this time. The Quebec finance minister, Raymond Bachand, and I have had many discussions about this and he continually urges me to get this through our legislative process. I suggest that it is very critical that we get this done. Frankly, the only people who have written to me who say that pooled registered pension plans are not a very good option that we should be pursuing are those who now have a pension.

I am here to push this forward to ensure we provide an option for the 60% of Canadians in the workforce who do not have the luxury of a pension plan.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, what is very clear is that the government has no qualms in abusing its power. It is important that we recognize that the government has now introduced time allocation on major variations of all types of legislation, budget proceedings and so forth, everything from the budget itself to the Canadian Wheat Board, to back-to-work legislation and yet again today.

I would emphasize, for the Conservative backbenchers in particular, that when they start to think about what will happen next week during the hours and hours of potential voting that might take place, I want them to reflect on the ability of the government House leader. The ability of the government House leader has been dismal. I have worked under NDP and Conservative majority governments in the province of Manitoba for many years and never before have I seen a House leader fail in his or her responsibility in providing adequate and proper debate on a wide variety of legislation.

Why has the government failed so miserably to work with either the official opposition or the Liberal Party to ensure that there is fair and adequate debate, therefore allowing for true accountability on the wide and important issues facing Canadians today?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Mr. Speaker, why is it that the hon. member can only talk about process? There is ample opportunity to debate today. He could have asked me a question about the substance of a pooled registered pension plan, how it works, how it will help Canadians or how it will provide another option for them. What does he ask? He asks a process question, probably identical to the one that he has asked every other time that he has stood in the House.

I did not get elected by telling my constituents I would come here and debate process. I told them I would come here and debate substance and do what is right for Canadians.

[Peggy Nash, NDP, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we are in fact debating a time allocation motion, which is debating the abuse of process that the government insists on following whereby for the 24th time it is limiting democratic debate on fundamental issues affecting Canadians.

What sparked this crisis around pensions was the crash of the private markets that were speculating, fraudulently, wildly, rampantly in the private sector. What we need and what there is general consensus on is the strengthening the public pension system, public pensions that are best represented by the Canada and Quebec pension plans.

Why would we ask Canadians to again trust their money to the private market which has dashed the hopes of so many for retirement security? Why would we trust it again now? Why would we allow it to make profits on the lack of security for most Canadians?

How can we ask the two-thirds of Canadians who do not have the extra money to put into private speculation to put even more money aside when they are having trouble making ends meet with a higher than ever personal debt level in Canada today? How can the minister justify that?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, I chastised my Liberal colleague for not talking about substance and now I see that you have provided latitude to the following questioners to actually get into the substance of it, which is good because we should be talking about that. That is what Canadians want us to talk about here. Can we provide a better option for people to help save for their own retirement? The answer is, yes. We put forward pooled registered pension plans as an option for that. That did not just come out of my mind. That was through extensive consultation with seniors and actuaries across this country who provided very sound advice on how we could best help Canadians save for themselves. It also included very extensive consultations with all of the provinces.

The hon. member should know, with her experience in dealing with provincial legislatures, that we do not have the authority to make an arbitrary change to the Canada pension plan without two-thirds of the provinces agreeing, as well as two-thirds of the population in those provinces agreeing to make a change. We did not have that. What we did have was unanimous consent from all the finance ministers from all across this country to pursue the framework for a pool registered pension plan. That is what we are doing.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Madam Speaker, the pooled registered pension plan is a small step that would provide another vehicle for savings. The NDP is quite right in pointing out that it is not an actual pension plan, but it is another savings vehicle.

Another idea that could be implemented to strengthen the option of the pooled registered pension plan and help keep fees competitive would be a voluntary supplemental Canada pension plan that would give Canadians, on a voluntary basis, the opportunity to invest in what is a Canada pension plan fund that is well-managed, well-diversified across asset class, well-diversified geographically and sectorally and also has a very low management fee because of the scale of it.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business, CFIB, has endorsed and supports the Liberal proposal of a voluntary supplemental CPP, as has the Canadian Association of Retired Persons, CARP. It would not lead to a significant or big increase in payroll premiums at a time of high unemployment, which is the concern the minister has expressed about the New Democrat proposal. However, it would help keep fees low for the financial services companies providing options in terms of pooled registered pension plans.

Will the minister express the government's view on this option that the Liberals have put forward, which could co-exist with the pooled registered pension plan and is endorsed—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. Before I recognize the hon. Minister of State for Finance, I would ask all members to ask their questions as briefly as possible and provide brief answers so that I can recognize as many of the members as I see rising as I can. As the Speaker has often said, we treat this like question period, recognizing, for the most part, members of the opposition, but I will recognize a couple of government members.

The hon. Minister of State for Finance.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, I, too, shall try to keep my answers brief, and I appreciate that.

However, I do want to reflect on the fact that we actually have a question on substance, and that is what we should be talking about. We should use every minute we have in this House to actually talk about substantive issues.

The hon. member asked a very good question. As part of our consultation, we looked at whether there should be an increase to the Canada pension plan. Our officials in the finance departments of all the provinces and territories, as well as the federal finance department, are still looking at options in order to ensure the Canada pension plan reflects the new environment we are living in.

However, we also looked at a voluntary supplementary Canada pension plan. We actually talked to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and asked the question outright: could it accommodate a voluntary supplementary pension plan? They said, not without increasing the cost.

That is why we are putting forward a low-cost, very accessible pension option for the 60% of Canadians who now do not have that option.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, the first thing I must say is that this is a time allocation motion. Once again, this is an attack on democracy, which is a big problem.

We had a chance to hear the minister of state answer questions. He talked about how there were consultations with the provinces to improve the federal pension plan and the Quebec pension plan.

In light of these discussions, we can see that the government is acting unilaterally. The government is imposing its decision regarding transfers to the provinces without any discussion. With respect to employment insurance, the government is once again making a unilateral decision that affects the Atlantic provinces in particular.

My questions are for the minister of state. How can the government say that it will negotiate in good faith and talk with the provinces when it is acting unilaterally? When the government does this, how can it expect to sit down as equals with the provinces, to benefit the retirees who worked for Canada and who built the country we know today?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is very easy to answer “yes” to that, because we have actually held the consultations.

We recognized the challenges that future retirees were facing, early in 2008. Our finance minister recognized that, and he asked two pension experts, retirement experts, to draft consultation papers for the federal-provincial-territorial finance ministers to scrutinize in December 2008.

This is before the NDP ever thought there were any issues with retirement. We started consulting then with the provinces, our partners in this. The consultation has already taken place all across this country. I have travelled to every province and every territory in this country to consult with those who have been impacted and will be impacted. This is the consensus that comes from the provinces and the federal government, and it is exactly what Canadians are asking for.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to tell the minister how much I, as the member from Mississauga, very much appreciate the bill.

For many years throughout Canadian history, the small business people, who have really built this country, have never had this kind of savings vehicle available to them, especially in Mississauga, where we have so many new Canadians who come to Canada and often find it very difficult when they first arrive to get hired by large industrial companies that have traditional pension plans. They start small businesses and they employ friends and neighbours. This is a plan that I think is important to them.

I wonder if the hon. member would talk a bit about how important it is to small business people, and new Canadians in particular.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, not only for his work on this matter, but for a very intuitive question. This is the challenge that many small businesses have dealt with. They have raised this with us in our consultations. They want to be able to provide some assistance. Not every business, but many businesses said, “We want to be able to help provide an option for our employees.”

New companies starting up and many of the long-time companies would like to offer a pension option to their employees. However, for the type of registered plan that most employers can offer, the employer carries the fiduciary responsibility. If something does not go right with that investment, who are the employees going to blame? They are going to blame their employer.

That is the beauty of the pooled registered pension plan. All the employer would have to do is offer it to his or her employees. The fiduciary responsibility would be on the pension plan provider.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, this morning is all about time allocation. The Conservatives have told us to be silent 24 times. However, it is important for us to be able to speak on various issues.

There are tax-free savings accounts for the richest members of this society, and the government plans to increase the maximum amount that can be deposited into such accounts to $10,000 per year. There are RRSPs for people who are able to save and who choose to go that route. And we are familiar with the public pension funds that are already protecting all Canadians—the Quebec pension plan and the Canada pension plan.

Why take risks? There was a white collar crime scandal not too long ago that jeopardized some people's savings. These people were putting money away every day from their net income—not their gross income—to try to have a pension. They lost $10,000, $20,000 and sometimes even more. Why risk Canadians' savings by investing their pension funds in the stock market?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member raises a very good question, which is, how well protected are seniors' investments?

We had a very serious conversation with our provincial partners. We were putting forward a Canadian or a common securities regulator. We put forward the legislation to be able to protect those investments. Unfortunately, the opposition members voted against that. They did not see far enough down the road to see that they were leaving investors vulnerable.

The question the member asked me might not have happened if we had a common securities regulator in place, that not only makes it simpler for businesses that want to invest in this country and employ more Canadians, but helps protect investments that are already made, whether they are in pension funds or mutual funds.

However, I guess the opposition really does not care about protecting Canadians' money.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, yesterday I asked the Treasury Board President, with respect to the 19,200 jobs lost and the $5.2 billion cuts in the budget, if he would be more specific and explain it all to the PBO, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and to Parliament. His answer was:

...I would remark that we are reporting to Parliament precisely in the normal means, through the estimates, the quarterly financial reports and the public accounts.

In effect, he is saying the government will let us know as it goes along.

If this were a public company and the CFO was asked by the board of directors to explain the budget, where the cuts were and why those amounts, and he or she said, “We'll let you know as we go along”, he or she would be fired on the spot.

My question to the hon. member is, when will the government be more specific about the cuts and where they will most dramatically hit?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, staying on subject, I think what the member actually wanted to ask me is, why is it that the Liberals and the NDP are not standing up for Canadians, the Canadians who do not have a pension plan they can count on?

If I were a Canadian watching this debate, I would be quite aghast at that sort of comment that, once again, is simply about process. That hon. member and obviously the rest of the opposition have completely forgotten what we are here for. We are here to help Canadians, not debate process.

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

Madam Speaker, I find it absolutely fascinating that the government would talk about being here to watch out for Canadians and then refuse to allow us to do our job and ask the questions that are essential in regard to this pooled pension scheme. It is nothing but a scheme. We know it is the employees who will take all the risk. We know it does not provide a defined benefit plan.

In other words, employees will not have any idea what their so-called pension will be worth. It is not indexed to inflation. It will increase in terms of costs as time goes on because the employees will be expected to make all of the contributions and employers are not required to make contributions.

We have a vehicle. That vehicle was discussed at the Minister of Finance's meeting. That is the Canada pension plan. It is absolutely solid. No matter what they said years ago about it being in jeopardy and about to evaporate, we know it is solid.

Therefore, my question is, why not take the advice of all of those who know, and simply make sure the Canada pension plan provides the kind of pension that will secure Canadians' future?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, there were a number of factually incorrect comments in that. Once we completed our triennial review in conjunction with our provincial and territorial partners, we reminded Canadians that the Canada pension plan is actuarially sound for another 75 years. We should get that message out to Canadians. Because of the statement the member just made, obviously the NDP sitting across from me has not even heard that. It bothers me that those members are sending out false statements.

I do need to raise one point. The member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek was the NDP critic for pensions. I put the emphasis on “was”. He was doing a great job consulting with Canadians. He worked with me. He and I did not always see eye to eye, but we were supportive of the main goal. He is no longer the critic, and I find that very disappointing. There is no one over there who has the depth of knowledge that the member for Hamilton East—Stoney Creek had on pensions.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague the Minister of State (Finance) for his outstanding job on this file. He has been working on this pooled pension fund project for a couple of years now. He has travelled across the country and met with a variety of stakeholders, small independent business owners, moms and dads, and the gamut of business operations and individuals across this country.

In the remaining time that my hon. colleague has left, I wonder if he could share with the House how many hours of debate has taken place. Could he tell us what he has done to date with respect to consulting with Canadians? I know he has come to my riding and gone to other communities. And could he tell us the timeline for implementing the act once it is passed by Parliament?

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will not be able to answer the question in one minute, but we have looked at this. We have had six days, 20 hours, of debate; 63 speeches; 4 days, 6 hours and 40 minutes, at committee; and 26 witnesses appeared. The member for Burlington, who is not sitting in his seat, but he is here, has spoken three times. He gave three 20-minute speeches on this issue.

The Speaker makes sure that time is shared equally on both sides of the House. I would suggest that, not only have our members spoken to the attributes of the bill, the NDP and the Liberals have had lots of opportunity to speak to its attributes as well. Apparently, they do not want to help Canadians.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles on a point of order.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the hon. member that he does not have the right to point out a member's presence or absence in the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

That is correct.

The hon. member for Dartmouth—Cole Harbour.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise for a few minutes and respond to the fact that we are faced with the 24th time allocation motion by the government. If the government is so proud of what it is doing in terms of this legislation and other bills, why does it keep bringing in motions to limit debate?

Let us understand that the reason Canadians have a crisis in terms of saving is because they are not making enough money to be able to put money aside to save for their retirement. It has been shown that the best way to deal with that is through the Canada pension plan. There is less overhead, less cost and it provides more safety for retirees.

The reason we have this hatched up bill is because the Minister of State (Finance) and the Minister of Finance did not have the courage or the fortitude to deal with the provincial ministers of finance to get a deal on the Canada pension plan. That is why we are dealing with this mess right now.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, is that hon. member suggesting we should have rammed our views down the throats of the provincial finance ministers? That is not the way we work with our provincial partners.

We actually work with our partners. That is why we are bringing forward pooled registered pension plan options for Canadians, because the provinces all agreed it was the best framework available at this time.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not surprised that the government is trying to shut down debate on its bogus pension plan, because it does not have the courage to go talk to the senior citizens of the country. This is a government that went to Davos to talk to the millionaires to say it was going to make senior citizens work another two years. That kind of myopic contempt is reflected here.

I look at the member for London—Fanshawe, who has tirelessly spoken up again and again for seniors, and then I see the clowns on the backbenches laughing at them. That is completely unacceptable.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

I have a point of order, Madam Speaker.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

On that point of order, I will hear the hon. member, but I would like to ask all members to be judicious in their use of language in the House. It is not permitted to use offensive language in speaking about other members.

I assume we can move on.

The hon. minister.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Macleod, AB]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the fact that you find that sort of language offensive in this place. We are all here for one purpose, and that is to help Canadians, not to call each other names. That is deplorable, and I would ask you to ask the hon. member to apologize.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I am asking the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay to withdraw that comment.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would be more than willing to withdraw that comment, but I want to say that we are here to represent our constituents and to debate, and what is happening with the government is a shutdown of debate because it will not do the honest thing and stand up and speak. That is what is intolerable in the House.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I consider that the hon. member has stated that he is withdrawing that statement.

I must advise all members that it is my duty to interrupt these proceedings.

On that last point of order, the hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Shelly Glover, Conservative, Saint Boniface, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have been here only a little short of four years now, and it boggles my mind that this type of behaviour continues under your watch, Madam Speaker. I would appreciate it if you would actually listen as I speak, because the member ought to apologize, which is what is required, not retract and then attack again. I would ask, Madam Speaker, to please—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

Order, please.

I must interrupt these proceedings, but according to the rules of order the hon. member's comments have been accepted as the equivalent of an apology. I will close the matter now.

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #274

Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from June 4 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 third time and passed.

Third Reading

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to speak on this bill. Members will remember Bill C-501 in the last Parliament, my bill to protect workers' pensions in case of bankruptcy. Although it was not successful and the parliamentary session ended before there was a chance to pass it into law, I was very pleased to see a number of Conservatives stand to support Bill C-501. As they did, it was very clear to the government in the last Parliament that something needed to be done about pensions.

This is the government's answer to protecting pensions for all Canadians. As this bill does not guarantee an actual pension, it is best to refer to this as a savings scheme. That would be a better term for it. I will not go into detail about how it is set up, but there are some problems with it and I would like to outline some of those today.

This pooled pension or savings plan would be managed at a profit by financial institutions, banks, insurance companies and trust companies, and by the very nature of it, there will be an administrative cost on the money everybody puts into the plan. There is no regulation in this bill to regulate the costs that could be charged, and I guess the government's reasoning is that, by doing that, the costs will remain low because there will be competition among the institutions.

By the way, I will be sharing my time with the member for Brossard—La Prairie.

Unlike other pension plans we have seen in the past, workplace plans and the like, this particular pooled plan would not require matching contributions from employers. That is problematic in itself. I suppose there would be some provincial regulations put in place when the plan is set up on whether employers would have to be part of it, but in the bill right now there is nothing like that.

The first big problem with the pooled savings scheme is that it is not indexed to any kind of inflation. Workers would be putting their money aside for their retirement, which is a good thing, money would be deducted for administrative costs over the course of 20 or 30 years or however long they are putting money into this plan, and they would not have an opportunity to take advantage of inflation.

In addition to that, the other problem is that they are not really protected. Because it is not indexed, people will not be protected from the vagaries of the marketplace. As we have seen in the last couple of years, people who have been saving for most of their working lives and had RRSPs, which are not unlike this particular plan because they are privately managed by institutions, in many cases saw the value of their RRSPs drop by 25% or 30%. People have come to my office in Thunder Bay and talked about a 35% drop in the value of their RRSPs. Therefore, there is no real protection.

I would suggest to the government that there is another much simpler way to help Canadians save for their retirement, with fewer fees, indexed to inflation, and the money will be guaranteed to be there when they retire. In fact, they will have a pretty good idea of how much they will be receiving when they do retire. That is using the best pension plan we have in this country, which is the CPP. We put money into the CPP now and most Canadians are happy to do that. I see the benefits of that every day when people come to my office and ask me to help them apply for their CPP or CPP disability, OAS, GIS and these sorts of things. It is wonderful that we have this in the country.

However, what we could have done, and what we still can do, instead of a savings scheme like this, is we could open up the CPP. We could open up the CPP so that people could contribute to the CPP over the course of their working life, at a higher rate for example, or people who are self-employed could pay into it, or people could pay on behalf of a spouse who might be a stay-at-home mom or dad. They could pay into this scheme over the next 20 or 30 years.

Let us just say for example that people were allowed to pay double the contributions they are making now. If they did that, they would of course reap the benefits of CPP because right now they get out of CPP what they put into it, so it would still work.

What happens is that we reduce all those fees. I understand that the government is interested in having private business involved in pension plans. I understand where it is coming from that on that. What I am suggesting is that is not the best way to go about doing this.

If someone were to double their contributions to CPP, if they were allowed to do that over the course of their working life, and that kind of change is not going to help people like me who are nearing retirement, but let us just think about the people who are in their 20s and working. Not many people in their 20s think about retirement.

CPP would be a wonderful vehicle for them to start planning for their retirement. If they did that now, then 10 years down the road the benefit would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of about $1,900 a month when they retire. If it were a gradual shift, a gradual increase in contribution, let us say doubling over the next 10 years, that is what is would be worth. I think it is actually $1,920.

Imagine younger workers being able, over the next 10 years, to double their contributions. There can be an assumption, I suppose, that people who are working will have their wages increase over that time. They are not going to take a disposable income hit to make that investment.

If people did that, we would not be caught in a situation, as the government seems to think we would be, where OAS would have to be raised to 67 from 65. It thinks a big crisis is coming. We can avoid all of that kind of talk. We can avoid that situation by simply doubling the CPP over the next 10 years and allowing a wider contribution pool for people to get into it.

It is safe. It is secure. The market does not affect it at all to the same extent as private savings plans, RRSPs for example. We would have a very secure fund.

The other reason I like the CPP, and I am talking about that as the alternative to these pooled savings plans, is of course that the government cannot get its hands on it. I think that is critical. It is an important part of the CPP and how it is managed today.

There is a protected pension fund that is guaranteed to be there. People know what they are going to have. It is a defined benefit plan. We have seen what has happened in the past with defined benefit plans. We have seen what happens when organizations like Nortel go bankrupt and people are left out in the cold.

In the pooled plan, I wonder what is going to happen. First of all employers are not required to put any portion into it. It is simply a savings plan, an RRSP-related kind of savings plan, for people to have for their retirement. My understanding from the bill is that it is portable.

If employers are not required to match or make contributions, and I suppose some will, perhaps with some kind of collective agreement, but what happens if that company goes bankrupt? What happens to that employer's contributions? Are they safe and secure? There are some very serious concerns about this.

From 2008, when I introduced—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

The hon. member's time has elapsed, but he may add some comments in response to questions and comments.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities and for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario.

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

Madam Speaker, the hon. member talked a lot about the Canada pension plan.

I think we all agree that this is a very well run national plan that helps Canadians prepare for their future. The board has obtained good returns on its investment.

However, in the same sentence as praising the CPP, he went on to suggest that it is not dependent upon the mercurial nature of the stock market.

If we look at the holdings of the Canada pension plan, we will find that about half of them are invested in the stock market. It is very much dependent, therefore, upon the profitability of the business sector. Of course, a stock in a company is only worth what that stock can pay out in dividends over time. So, the CPP, which the NDP purports to cherish, depends very much upon after-tax corporate profit.

Would he join with me in supporting lower taxes on Canadian business so that after-tax profit would be higher and the benefits to plans like the CPP would be increased?

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the member is very concerned about pensions and the future of Canadians and how they retire and so I thank him for that question.

However, in response to that, I have a couple of quotes.

Jon Kesselman, Canada Research Chair in Public Finance at Simon Fraser University, says:

Expanding the CPP is the best option for improving Canadian workers' retirement income security; it can ensure results that none of the many alternative reform proposals for private schemes can provide.

I will not read the whole quote, but in part a Calgary Herald editorial states, at the end of 2010:

The CPP already covers almost all Canadian workers and thus spreads the risk and management fees. It is fully portable, offers guaranteed income to all retirees, and is the only risk-free investment broadly available to workers.

So, Madam Speaker—

[The Deputy Speaker, Denise Savoie]

I regret to interrupt the hon. member, but I must allow time for more questions.

Questions and comments.

The hon. member for Winnipeg North.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party has talked about this particular fund as a potential small tool that would be able to facilitate a number of individuals who are aging and are thinking in terms of their pension plan.

However, we are very much concerned about the bigger picture, with regard to the CPP.

What we are looking for is stronger leadership coming from the Prime Minister and the government, in terms of sitting down at the table with the different provinces to try to get some sort of an agreement that would enhance CPP benefits for all individual Canadians who are working.

I wonder if the member might want to comment on the importance the federal government has, in terms of demonstrating leadership in negotiating with the provinces.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Madam Speaker, the problem with this savings scheme, as the government outlines it, is that it misses a whole demographic in Canada that CPP would be able to cover. I am talking about those who are living in poverty.

According to Statistics Canada, more than 14% of senior women on their own are living in poverty. To increase the availability of CPP and GIS, for example, would be enough to eliminate poverty in our lifetime and the next generation's lifetime. More than half, 52.1%, of lone mothers of children under the age of six live in poverty. They would not really have any kind of access at all to the savings plan. Therefore I think what the government should be doing, as the member suggests, is showing leadership, real leadership, to include all Canadians in a retirement scheme in this country.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-25, An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts.

At first glance, this measure seems to be a good one. However, it turns out to be a half measure when we take a closer look. That is exactly what was done by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and even more so by the NDP in the House. This bill really has holes and problems. It has to be studied in its entirety, and we must figure out why the government has introduced this bill.

In Bill C-38 , the Conservatives attack seniors. That is clear. Just look at the provisions concerning the old age security program and the guaranteed income supplement.

The government has decided to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67 without providing any explanation. We posed questions to the Minister of Finance at the Standing Committee on Finance. The opposition was very insistent and, in the end, the government admitted that the savings would amount to $10.8 billion in 2030. The government is therefore balancing its budget at the expense of seniors and future generations, and that is a problem. We must understand where the government is coming from when we study this bill.

One of the first things that is obvious about the RPPP is that this product is very similar to an existing product, the RRSP.

In fact, RPPPs are more comparable to RRSPs—because they are administered by banks and financial institutions that will invest the money in the markets—than to a pension plan for seniors or future retirees.

On the weekend, one of my constituents told me that when he was younger, people talked about retiring at 55. They believed that if they invested as much as their advisor told them to into a retirement plan or their RRSP, they would be able to retire at 55, no problem. Today, that constituent is still working even though he is over 55 because these retirement investment products fluctuate with the market and the market has been turbulent lately. The investor's retirement income depends on the market.

What we are talking about today is exactly the same thing. It seems like the government has learned nothing from past mistakes and is doomed to repeat them. It claims it is introducing a product for the people who need it. Obviously everyone wants to have a stable and guaranteed retirement. However, this product does not offer such guarantees.

I would say it is like an RRSP because the employee is told to invest in this plan, but the employer is in no way forced to contribute to it. Therefore it is the employee who assumes all the risk. Of course, the employer might contribute, but that depends on his goodwill.

The government currently has tools such as the Canada pension plan and, in Quebec, the Quebec pension plan. These are solid plans.

No one across the way can deny that the Canada pension plan works, that it is well run and ensures a good retirement for those who are lucky enough to benefit from it: workers, self-employed workers, and people in the public and private sectors.

This plan exists and that is why we are saying that instead of creating a product that is similar to RRSPs or TFSAs, which we already have, the government should be investing in a plan that works. According to witnesses at the Standing Committee on Finance, the cost-benefit ratio for taxpayers is very high. It costs less to administer the CPP than to create a new product.

One problem is that this product is administered by financial institutions that want to generate profits. We know this; it is normal. At whose expense are these financial institutions going to make their profits? At the expense of those who have invested in this product. In this case, there is no guarantee. We talked about the fact that regulations might be brought in to ensure that the fees are not too high. However, there can be no guarantee that those fees will not go up over time. And when those fees go up, who loses? Who will have less money in the end? The people who paid in will lose. In this case, it will mainly be employees.

Rather than helping employees and people who are going to retire, the government is helping financial institutions, which, clearly, are already at an advantage thanks to the choices this government has made with previous budgets and the most recent budget. All the government is doing is continuing to reduce their tax rate so they can generate more profits. However, those profits do not go back to the common people. They do not go to those who want to retire with dignity and prepare for their future. Once again, clearly, this government does not have the best interests of seniors at heart.

My colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River introduced a bill to protect pension plans in case of bankruptcy. During the last election campaign, I met people. One person came to see me to say that we had come up with a very good idea, something that would protect them. He had spent a good part of his life working for Nortel, investing, working hard and keeping the economy going. Money was invested in his pension for the future. He was promised that he would be protected when he retired. We all know what happened in the end. Nortel went bankrupt. Because pensions were not protected, he is now living in misery. That is what he told me. This man's plight touched me deeply. He had tears in his eyes when he said that he had worked, he had invested, he had done everything he was expected to do, and yet the government failed to protect him.

What I find so difficult to understand is why the government does not really want to protect seniors, the people who truly helped build this country, who worked very hard. Thanks to these people, Canada has made progress in terms of the economy and quality of life. The government should be thanking them and telling them that they have worked hard, but what is it doing instead? It is giving them the cold shoulder. Not only that, but it is also attacking them. They worked hard and set money aside, but the government does not even want to protect them. What a shame to see that kind of attitude from the government.

As I said, that is what we are seeing in the budget, in Bill C-38. All of that and various changes have resulted in a record gap between rich and poor. That gap has been growing steadily since the Second World War. Of course, former Liberal governments have to take some of the blame, but so does the Conservative government.

The Conservative government is aware of the situation. The Conference Board of Canada and the OECD are saying it. The facts are there. The gap between the rich and poor is growing wider and wider, particularly in Canada, where it is growing more rapidly than in the United States. Imagine that. The United States has always seemed to be the prime example when it comes to this gap. Of the industrialized countries, Canada has surpassed the United States and other countries in how fast this gap is widening. It is because of measures like the budget and this bill that we are seeing these differences. Why? It is because the government is not helping those who need it most.

When we talk about old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, we are talking about people— seniors who are living on the edge of poverty. This government's solution is to tell them to work two years longer—to increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67—and that things might be better for them later. This is a completely ideological way of doing things. As the OECD said, there is no problem; this is purely a government decision.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie for his speech. We know that, of the 75 or so members who could speak, he is one of the few who will be allowed to do so because the government has just imposed a gag order.

The cat is finally out of the bag. We heard it recently from the Conservative member for Nepean—Carleton. The plan is to make entrepreneurs, companies and business leaders pay less while workers pay more. This is a disguised tax. Employers will not be required to contribute to the pension fund and all of the responsibility will fall on workers' shoulders.

I would like the hon. member to explain this aspect in greater detail. Why is the government not asking employers to pay their fair share of their workers' pension funds?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the very good question. That is really at the core of this bill and it is truly what we oppose.

Generally speaking, the bill looks good. However, upon closer examination something very important stands out. It is not mandatory for the employer to contribute, and therefore the employee is told to set aside some money and maybe the employer will contribute. If the objective is to protect employers rather than employees—the people who will be retiring—it is not mandatory for employers to contribute. In that case, the employee assumes all the risk.

That is why I repeated that it is the same as an RRSP. It is about putting money aside. The employer does not have to contribute.

I would like to read a statement by Michel Lizée, coordinator of UQAM's Service aux collectivités, who sits on the Université du Québec retirement committee:

We should first expand the Quebec pension plan in order to increase universality and income security. An enhanced QPP could reduce employers' current service costs, and consequently their funding risk and administrative burden, while levelling the playing field with respect to competition among businesses.

Clearly, the government is not even going with what makes the most sense.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I know the Liberal Party critic was quite strong on the point of the importance of CPP, but also emphasized that this was something we classified as a relatively small tool that many consumers would be able to utilize. There are other tools.

I recall the Crocus fund, for example, in the province of Manitoba. The NDP provincial government promoted it as a fund for seniors to invest in to get the tax breaks and so forth.

Does the member believe seniors or individuals looking at retirement should have other options outside of CPP? If so, what should those options be?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his question. In terms of the options to be considered, why look elsewhere when we have a program that works?

The Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan work. They help those who are eligible. Accessibility can be changed and expanded, but that is a discussion to be had with the provinces. If a product is working and helping those who benefit from it, then we have to invest in that product. That is why in the NDP, we have said that this program works. It has been shown to have lower costs and higher profits. Who benefits from those profits? People taking their retirement; that is who. The program works.

We have heard the government say that it has to negotiate these things with the provinces. However, when we look at the government's current approach to negotiating with the provinces, we see that it is less about negotiating and more about imposing things. Just look at the health transfers to the provinces. This government makes unilateral decisions. The same goes for employment insurance. The government imposes its decisions, end of discussion. Then it turns around and says it consulted the provinces. When the federal government imposes its way of doing things and tells the provinces what they are going to receive, where is the opportunity to negotiate?

We think this should be discussed with the provinces. There are ways to improve the pension plan and I agree that there are ways to go about it. However, above all, we have to talk to the provinces, which the government is not doing.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Crowfoot.

I am honoured today to add my voice in support of the work our government continues to do for Canadians regarding pensions and retirement income security.

Promoting the retirement income security of Canadians is an important goal of the Government of Canada, and we will continue to ensure that our policies, programs and services meet the evolving needs of Canadians.

In the wake of economic shocks from beyond our borders, Canadians are concerned about the long-term viability of their pension plans. We are listening to their views on how we can leverage Canada's financial sector advantage to strengthen the security of pension plan benefits and ensure the framework is balanced and appropriate. We are working toward a permanent long-term solution to protect the pensions of Canadians.

In our efforts to achieve greater retirement security for Canadians, our government is building on the inroads we have already made to strengthen the framework for federally regulated private pension plans. In 2009, we consulted Canadians from coast to coast to coast on these earlier initiatives and subsequently introduced a number of significant changes based on the advice of individual Canadians.

Why were pooled registered pension plans, or PRPPs, created? Canada's aging population and the global economic crisis brought the issue of retirement security to our attention. It is a very important issue. In this context, a joint federal-provincial working group was established in May 2009 to undertake an in-depth examination of retirement income in Canada.

The working group found that, overall, the Canadian retirement income system was performing well and providing Canadians with an adequate standard of living for retirement. However, some Canadian households, especially middle-income households, were living with the risk of not saving enough for retirement. The ministers worked together to analyze the wide range of ideas put forward in order to address the issues raised by the research report.

This exhaustive research led the Minister of Finance and the provincial ministers to agree on a framework for pooled registered pension plans in December 2010.

Since taking office in 2006, our government has also introduced several improvements to the tax rules for registered pension plans and registered retirement savings plans. If I have a moment I will get back to those important initiatives as well, but the pooled registered pension plans really are the crux of this bill.

Pooled registered pension plans, or PRPPs, will mark a significant step forward in advancing our retirement income agenda and will be a vital improvement to Canada's retirement income system.

What is a pooled registered pension plan? PRPPs are a new kind of defined contribution pension plan that will be available to employers, employees and the self-employed. PRPPs will improve the range of retirement savings options for Canadians. In fact, they will give all Canadians an opportunity to save for their retirement by providing an accessible, straightforward and administratively low-cost retirement option for employers to offer their employees.

They will allow individuals who currently do not participate in a pension plan—over 60% of the population—such as the self-employed and employees of companies that do not offer a pension plan, to make use of this new kind of plan.

More people will benefit from the lower investment management costs that result from the economies of scale of membership in large pooled pension plans, while allowing employees to transfer their accumulated benefits from one system to another and ensuring that funds are invested in the best interests of the plan members.

Some Canadians may also be failing to take full advantage of the discretionary savings opportunities offered to them through individual structures like RRSPs. In fact, the average Canadian has about $18,000 in unused room in their RRSP, unused for possible contributions. Research indicates that a portion of Canadians are not saving enough, and as I said, more than 60% of Canadians do not have a pension plan. We are trying to provide them with a means to save for their future.

PRPPs will address this gap in the retirement income system by providing a new, accessible, large-scale and low-cost defined contribution pension option to employers, to employees and to the self-employed.

We will allow individuals who currently may not participate in an employer-sponsored pension plan the same opportunity to save for the future. This is very, very important.

What are the advantages of pooled registered pension plans? PRPPs are innovative retirement savings plans that will address the lack of large-scale, low-cost retirement options for many Canadians. Some Canadians cannot take advantage of savings opportunities provided by individual structures, such as RRSPs.

For example, the average Canadian has about $18,000 in unused contribution room. Many Canadians have access to a pension plan only if their employer offers one. Many employers refuse to take on the legal and administrative burden related to a pension plan. PRPPs will eliminate most of the usual barriers that may have discouraged some employers from offering a pension plan to their employees in the past.

Since these plans will involve large pooled funds, plan members will benefit from the lower investment management costs associated with the scale of these funds. Essentially, they will be buying in bulk.

The design of these plans will be straightforward. They will remove barriers that might have been in the way of people who want to save for their future and for the future of their families.

We all understand that Canadians want their governments to work in partnership with them to provide and deliver results, and the bill today does exactly that.

Canada's seniors have worked hard to build a better country for future generations, and today's workers should be given every chance to follow in their footsteps.

Our record shows that our government is committed to the financial well-being of Canadian seniors, as well as those Canadians who are currently still working to realize their retirement dreams.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for her presentation, but the reality is that 12 million Canadians have no savings and no pensions whatsoever. The PRPP will not address that because it is not mandatory. The biggest problem with the bill is that those same people who are not investing now will not invest unless they are put into a position where they must invest. The other problem with the bill is that the fees are not capped.

When we made the proposition that we should increase the Canada pension plan, it was on the basis that the Canada pension plan was portable and mandatory. The cost to a person who makes $40,000 a year to double the Canada pension plan in 30 years would be $161 a year, roughly $9,000 over their working career. Where can we invest $9,000 today and look forward to having $1,800-plus per month in the future? The reality is that the PRPP fails.

Also, the government has announced that it is going to make seniors work two extra years. People on disability or welfare who looked forward to moving up when they got OAS and GIS will now have to wait two more years to have that money.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to explain a few more details to my colleague opposite.

First, the reality right now is that more than 60% of Canadians do not have pension coverage. That is a very serious reality. Given that, with this legislation we are enabling Canadians to help themselves, to take charge.

We have just created 750,000 new jobs, but if the average experience in the Canadian workplace applies to those jobs, some of them may not have entitlements. We have created those jobs, and now we are creating an opportunity for those people to save for their future, enabling them to accept that responsibility and to be helped with lower-cost opportunities for that saving.

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her speech.

However, I want to make it clear that this product will merely encourage people to save; it will not guarantee anyone's retirement income.

My colleague said that people can invest in these pension plans, but consider TFSAs, which are a similar product to help people save tax-free. Only 41% of Canadians have a TFSA, and nearly half of them earn $100,000 or more per year. Only 24% of those surveyed said they are using their TFSA to save for retirement. The product envisaged in Bill C-25 is the same as an existing retirement product.

Why does my colleague say that people will invest more if they are not required to, even though he knows that people who do not have money do not invest for their retirement?

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the opposition, but I must clarify some facts so that he better understands our bill.

Our bill will help all Canadians. In fact, it will give Canadians the opportunity to save for their retirement. How? People who are not currently part of a pension plan, such as self-employed workers and business owners without a retirement plan, will be able to use the new PRPPs. When we save money, we set that money aside for retirement.

The hon. member addressed another part of our strategy to help all Canadians.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place and represent the constituents of Crowfoot and speak on their behalf in this House of Commons.

I realize that the introduction to this will not necessarily deal immediately with the pooled registered retirement plan, but over the last couple of days here on Parliament Hill we have had some major announcements about some things that I had never heard about.

Two days ago, the Minister of Health and a couple of other ministers made an announcement about a drug known as “bath salts”, which was a negative part of the drug culture and basic culture around the world, where people, young and old, were using this new drug, and so we banned it. My point is that our government was stepping forward to protect Canadians from something that some of our young people may not have even realized at the time would be such a potent, devastating tragedy just waiting to happen.

Yesterday, we had another announcement about human trafficking where we stepped up and said that we would protect Canadians.

Our government is implementing plans across the country and across a wide scope of areas to protect Canadians. We are implementing plans to create jobs and enable small businesses to provide opportunities for retirement, which is what we are here debating today, because we want Canadians to be secure on our streets, in a job and in retirement. Bill C-25 is part of that plan.

Our Conservative government's efforts to help Canadians save for their retirement do not begin with a pooled registered pension plan. It begins with a vast number of other plans that we want to see stable and secure. We see and have heard that our CPP is stable and strong. In the 75-year projection, CPP will be very strong and it will be there when Canadians need it.

However, not always does one size fit all. Not always can we tell Canadians that only if they wait CPP will take care of them at the end of the day. I think every economist and all individuals who are trying to better their life or pass on some financial instruction to their children would encourage their children to save, not just to go out and get a job and pay into CPP, but that they look at a number of different avenues in which they can protect their retirement and have a strong retirement.

This is a modern-day effort to assist Canadians who are self-employed or who work for small firms or businesses that do not have part of a benefits package that includes a pension plan. Our intent is to help Canadians who work where there is no pension plan. Sometimes the opposition members stand back and say that we should just throw more money into CPP or we should have that wealth transfer so the wealthy can put more money into it and we will all get a bit more. The CPP is strong and maybe we can make it stronger, but there need to be more avenues than just the CPP and more avenues than just this pooled retirement pension plan.

Many constituents in my riding of Crowfoot do not have access to a pension plan. The colleague who just spoke said that 60% of Canadians do not have access to a pension plan. I live in a rural riding and I believe that is true in most rural or remote ridings in Canada.

I spoke to this bill at second reading. When I had town hall meetings, met with constituents and had satellite office days, constituents came to me and asked me about the pooled registered retirement savings plan. I explained to them that we were not trying to incorporate a mandatory plan for all Canadians. I told them that it was not another tax grab, that it was not another opportunity for the government to put more of a premium down on CPP or any one plan. I told them that this was an opportunity, if they so chose to do it, to invest in a pooled registered retirement plan.

Around our place this summer, we will have a different type of summer. My oldest child, my daughter, is getting married. With that has come all the fun things with being involved in wedding planning. For years we have sat down and talked to our children about planning for the future and about some day in the future buying a home. We have told them that even when they come right out of college they should purchase an RRSP, that they should look into all of those different avenues.

Now, as my daughter is preparing to get married, she and her fiancé have asked me to n go with them to look at a house. They are just out of college and yet they want to invest in a home. I have for years told my children that they want to buy a home with 20% to 25% down. Now my daughter is telling that, even though I always told her that it was important to have that 20% to 25% to put down, she does not have 5% to put down, which is why she needed me to look at a home. The point is that some of these lessons are learned. Our children learn that it is important to have equity in a home and that it is important to invest and prepare for the future. As a father, I want to be able to help where I can.

As a government, we also want to be able to help where we can. As a government, we want to be able to say that we will not only be satisfied with the CPP, that we will not only be satisfied with the tax-free savings account and that we will not only be satisfied with a pooled pension plan, we want people to pick and choose and perhaps invest but to prepare.

In the rural constituency that I represent there are many farmers and many agricultural based companies who do not have a pooled registered pension plan. This is one of those opportunities. I commend our government for bringing this forward. I encourage the opposition to get off the bandwagon of one-size-fits-all and to recognize that when people have a registered plan they have something to count on.

Not only do we have agriculture in Crowfoot but many people also work in the oil patch in Crowfoot. Many people today will be contracted to work for one company but in a year or two will be working for a different company. The thing I like about this plan is that people would be able to take the plan with them because it is a plan in which they invest. When they leave that company, maybe after two years, they would not need to decide whether to pull out that little chunk of money they put away in a pension plan and put it into an RRSP, which is really the only way to protect that money. There is the tax-free savings account, but to save some taxes people can invest in an RRSP.

Now, as people switch from one company to another, one job to another or one contract to another, the pooled pension plan would remain constant. Now, when they go to the next place of employment that does not provide a pension plan, they would have this tool in their toolbox. It is something they will appreciate.

I encourage the opposition to recognize that there are many Canadians with many different groups. People cannot always reach into their toolbox and pull out a hammer. We reach in and pull out the tool that best suits our needs for the job that we are doing.

We are fortunate sitting here because we have pension plans. That is the topic of discussion, as well, in my constituency. I think it is time to say that this opportunity needs to avail for all those who want to take advantage of it. Our government is providing that tool and I congratulate it.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we in the NDP have said that we should have a comprehensive view of the retirement security plans for all Canadians. That has been our position for a number of years.

The member spoke about town halls and previous speakers spoke about the parliamentary secretary doing town halls in 2009. I did 20 town halls that summer. The next year I did 20 more, and I have done 7 this year so far. Overwhelmingly, people have told me that the type of plan the government talks about in the PRPP is not what suits their needs. We have a difference of view. I am not saying that the government is not making attempts to do things, because it is. In fact, I have had discussions with members regarding the enhancement of the Canada pension plan. I still think that is something we will get to at some point in time.

However, the PRPP has two significant flaws, which I have mentioned before: it is not mandatory and there is no cap on fees. It relies on the goodwill of the provinces involved.

The situation in Australia with the Australia superfund, which was a similar type of plan, is that over a 10-year period it did not even keep pace with inflation because of the fees that were applied to it. That is my concern.

If you cap the fees, then you might have something that has some reasonableness to it, but if you do not do that, it will not help Canadians.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Again I would remind all hon. members to direct their comments to the Chair rather than to their colleagues.

The hon. member for Crowfoot.

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member has worked on this file. I wish he had been present when the minister gave his speech because he gave the member quite an accolade. I know this is something that is near and dear to the member's heart.

As we heard in the member's question, that is one of the big differences between the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party. The hon. member said that one of the frustrations he has is that it is not mandatory, but there are other tools that are mandatory.

When people have a job, no matter what the job is, they do pay into the CPP and they do have employment insurance deductions. All of those things are mandatory. RRSPs are not mandatory. Does that make RRSPs wrong? I do not believe that hon. gentleman would suggest that it does. Why, then, would he say that his frustration is that they are not mandatory? This is an option, as we have stated before, an option for people to plan for the future.

Some individuals may have the opportunity to put thousands of dollars into the retired pension savings plan while others may have hundreds of dollars. The beauty of this plan is that it would allow people to make their decisions for their future.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague's speech was very similar to the speeches I have made on this particular topic about adding a tool to the toolbox in terms of options and opportunities for Canadians.

We have heard from the other side, particularly on the CPP but even on the RRSP plan, criticism that this would be based on the marketplace of the stock markets and that it was just an investment with no guarantee because it would be invested in the stock market.

I would like the member to comment on the wrong thinking of the opposition that the stock market is the wrong place to have retirement investments. What role does the stock market play in all retirement investments in this country?

[Kevin Sorenson, Conservative, Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if the member is asking for advice on the stock market, he is asking the wrong guy. I know he is not.

A well-diversified portfolio is what is important. There was a very wise man who, a number of days ago, said that it was very important to take a medium to long-range look at one's planning. In an investment portfolio, I would encourage people to have some degree of investment in the stock market, but if we want to have a strong, solid, viable retirement, I would warn against lumping all of our investments into the stock market.

The plan will be well managed. It will there for employees who do not have time to manage their portfolios. This is another avenue for people to take. It will be managed, diversified, secure and registered. The government will be behind it. It is a strong, solid option.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate Bill C-25, An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts.

I am trying to bring a little balance to the debate today. I have listened to what the members of the NDP and Conservatives have said. I understand the government has realized that Canadians are worried about their retirement or realized, finally, that something has to be done.

I think it was two years ago that my friend, the Minister of State for Finance, travelled across the country, had consultations and came up with something called a pooled registered pension plan, which is an offshoot of the registered retirement savings plan. Now the government is making a big PR event out of it. Again, I agree with the member for Burlington, that it is an extra tool in the toolbox. That is why we support it. However, that is not the answer to the crisis we are having or the retirement savings and their future that people are worried about.

We have had six years of the Conservative government, with increases in hidden taxes. That has been part of the cause. Canadians have less money in their pockets to put toward retirement. We have had a lot of pressure on Canadians, whether they have lost their jobs or have had to take on other responsibilities. We have seen Canadians of all age groups having less money in their pockets, for various reasons. As I have said, most of this had led to some of the policies of the Conservative government.

Even those who do have savings are worried about retirement. We have seen rates of interest that have been the lowest ever in history. Therefore, even people who have money put away in a savings account are barely getting 1%. A lot of times it has been 0.5% or 0.25%. Canada savings bonds used to pay 10%. They are now paying less than 2% and 3%, if people are lucky because they have been holding on to the bonds for six or seven years. We expect these interest rates to continue to be low.

Canadians have taken risks. They may be retiring in a couple of years and need to get their retirement savings up. How do they do that? Maybe they take a gamble on something, but are they not sure what it will be. Some people have put it in the stock market.

We saw what happened a couple of years ago with the tech bubble where people put tons of money in companies like Nortel, which was supposed to be the most secure company around. It was an offshoot of Bell Canada. Some people got their shares for free, like my parents. They decided to keep them. The stock went up to $100 then $200 a share. They decided to buy some more because it was going to go to $400, trading in multiples based on sales never heard before. That was the way these tech stocks were evaluated. All of a sudden, overnight, stock portfolios of millions and millions of dollars went down to zero. We are still seeing lawyers making money from the Nortel bankruptcy. People who have disability plans and pension plans with Nortel cannot get their money out. They cannot get paid because the lawyers are holding up the distribution. The government is not willing to help these people. There is some money stuck out in some tax haven and the only people making money are the professionals, and people see this.

As recently as the bank crisis a couple of years ago, people thought it was secure to have stocks in the banks. They put their money in the banks thinking it was as secure as ever. Then we saw the bank closures in the states. We were lucky in Canada, but we cannot put all our eggs in one basket, as most personal investment advisers say. They will also advise to diversify. People who took the advice of professional advisers, they would have lost some money a couple of years ago by having their money in bank stocks.

Again, people are worried. People have invested money in resources. People have invested money in the past in metals such as gold. As recently as a few years ago, gold was at a couple of hundred bucks. Now, if one was lucky enough to have invested in gold, it is at $2,000 an ounce practically, but who can forecast those things?

Some people have their money invested in secure investments such as bonds, but countries have gone bankrupt and are unable to pay their bondholders. They are being renegotiated. Who is making the big money? It is the big players. I do not see how individuals who are busy trying to raise a family will make any more money than they can make today.

Again, some people are taking more risks, such as in real estate. We see what is happening in the real estate market across the country if one is fortunate enough to buy a condo. It seems like the condo market is fine. Those who live in a condo may buy another one to rent out to maybe make some money. However, as soon as the condo market collapses, as is predicted, they may have to take some money out of their retirement savings to supplement these real estate deals.

Therefore, I do not see how the government could think that people can easily put some money into a pooled savings plan that is administered by somebody we do not know and all of a sudden, miraculously, their retirement savings will be secure for a 5, 10, 15 or 25-year period.

For years, the Liberal Party has said that we should start with the Canada pension plan. In Quebec, it is the Quebec pension plan. It survived relatively well in comparison to many of the other private pension plans, so we should be working with that.

Elderly Canadians are not the only ones who are beginning to worry. As I have said before, we have young people who are worried about their future. We see Quebeckers who are going to the streets based on the fact that their tuition fees and cost of living are going up. They see a crisis developing in the next while. That all means they know their retirement will be affected because the Conservative government has told them they will not be able to retire until the age of 67.

This is nothing new. We have had crises, whether it be over pensions or other issues. In the 1990s, the Liberal government recognized that the Canada pension plan was not sustainable and action had to be taken. What did we do? We consulted with individuals and stakeholders, not just our friends. We met with the provinces. We looked at how we could secure the CPP in the long term and we did not just issue talking points.

We realized there was a problem, and we did not turn to private institutions to solve it. We negotiated truly, we invoked thought-provoking discussions and, miraculously, we came to an agreement with all of the provinces. It was not self-imposed. It was not dictated to them, as the current government likes to do. We recently saw that with the health accord. The previous Liberal government sat down with all the provinces and discussed the issues and the needs, came to an agreement and signed a 10-year health accord. The Conservative government has said that it does not need to discuss anything with the provinces. It will give them some money and increase it at a certain level. After that, it is their problem, even though it knows that the cost of health care will increase within five to ten years.

Coming back to the bill, the government says that it will secure people's pensions. In actual fact, the only thing we think it will do is make the banks and insurance companies happy by allowing them to offer pooled registered pension plans to employers and the self-employed in federal jurisdictions. It would also provide a framework for provinces to pass similar legislation.

The budget tabled recently in the Quebec National Assembly provides for companies to offer this pooled registered pension plan to their employees, which we have not seen in the other provinces.

I do not believe the province of Ontario passed it in the last budget and there has not been any movement with the other provinces. I am sure somebody on the other side will correct me.

We also think it is great that the administrators of the plans will be regulated. Financial institutions need a special licence from the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, and we have no problem with that.

The only problem is that most individuals already have trouble saving. A lot of them are working in low-paying jobs. Many of them work for small companies, which do not have the time, energy, resources or ability to set up these plans no matter how easy it is. It will be very difficult to see any of these smaller companies implement a registered pension plan. As an accountant by trade, I just do not see it.

A lot of employers would not want to make RRSP contributions, even for employees who want to have them deducted from their pay cheques and put aside. They do not want to take on that responsibility. There would have to be separate accounting, extra cheques would be involved, for example, and administration. They would have to hold the money in an account, ensure there is enough money in that account a month later to make the remittance, and then ensure the amounts are deposited into the correct employees' accounts. I could go on and on. I do not see why we would not use the tool available to us, which would be the CPP or the QPP.

Companies would have the option of rolling into a plan. If it is not made mandatory and companies would have an option, I am not so sure how many companies would take us up on that, unless of course they have a dedicated payroll resource person and they really need to keep these employees and the employees all agree they need to have this plan.

Again, we are not asking the employer to contribute, and we are not asking all the employees of a certain company to opt in. They have the option of opting out. A company may only have 10 or 20 employees. If only 2%, 3%, or less than 50% of them opt in, I do not see why that company would go to the trouble of setting up a pooled registered pension plan.

Also, the troubling part is that this new option is another private registered savings vehicle, which more than likely would help the financial institutions. I think it was a member from the Conservative Party who stated Canadians, on average, have $80,000 of unused RRSP contributions. If there were an urgency because Canadians have totally utilized all their RRSP room, I would understand the purpose of coming up with something like this.

Right now, the only people I am aware of who are using their RRSP to the maximum, again, using my background as an accountant and speaking to my accounting friends and bankers, are people who can afford it. That means it is the higher-income people. I do not see the necessity to start a program just for these people.

The Liberals believe the solution is that we do not need to look any further than working with the Canada pension plan and the QPP to help people save for retirement. The CPP and QPP have proven track records. They have been stable and secure. Even through these economic downturns, they have been quite strong.

We see it in Quebec. The QPP has rebounded in the last two years, with rates of return close to 10%. There was a bit of a crisis about three years ago where it lost tons of money in certain investments in the banking sector. It changed its management. It changed its direction. It made recent statements that it is going to change direction again. It will be looking at making investments in infrastructure and other areas that would require a lot of money that individuals do not have in their RRSPs.

Even if we wanted to take the example of these pooled registered pension plans, there would not be enough money in these pooled plans to be able to diversify risk, as the CPP and the QPP are doing today. Supplementary CPPs could allow those who want to investment more in a secure retirement vehicle to do so.

Again, we are not sure about the fees. I know we are very worried about the fees. Even if these registered pooled pension plans start with low management fees, it would be a matter of time before the banks and insurance companies get a hold of people's accounts and hold them hostage. If the funds do a good job and the return is high, we know what would happen. All of a sudden, the fees will go up. If there is no return, the fees will stay the same. I do not see how we are going to win with this.

Again, we would be adding another level of complexity to people's options for savings, such as deciding what to do their money when they change employers: “Do I keep it in this pooled retirement savings plan? Do I keep it with the bank? Do I move it to an insurance company. What point am I at in my life? Am I going to be retiring in five years, ten years, fifteen years?

The administration of what an individual is to do with the money in that pooled registered pension plan would be a headache for unsophisticated investors, and the areas they would want to invest in would add another level of complexity.

We could look at options for opening it up further. One of the options would be for government to look at options to help those who are in the low-paid workforce. These are people who are moving from job to job, and they are the people who need the most help with their retirement savings.

In making these decisions, we need to look at the evidence. Policy decisions, such as retirement savings plans for Canadians, were not made on a whim but rather based on solid evidence.

Somebody also stated that Australia implemented a similar program to the pooled registered pension plans. After 10 years, it was obvious that the only ones making money were the financial institutions. In Australia, $161 billion of investments were made in pooled pension plans versus $105 billion in fees that were taken out of these plans. It is not dollar for dollar, but 80¢ was charged for every dollar that was put into the pooled pension plan.

A recent study by the Rotman International Journal of Pension Management found that despite the presumed role of competition, the investment performance of the system continued to be restrained, again by high fees and costs. We think this could be averted by using the CPP or QPP as the supplementary retirement investment tool.

As parliamentarians, we should also be concerned by all of this and perhaps look at how we could improve the pooled registered pension plan, or look at other options. The other option is easily the CPP, QPP.

However, we have seen that the Conservatives have already made up their minds. Like many other things, they will not listen to anyone else's opinion, or reason. They will not even look at evidence on a lot of issues. They will blindly follow this approach and put their hands over their ears and march on.

As we have seen today, the Conservatives have moved time allocation so we can no longer debate this issue. The very reason each and every one of us is elected to this House is for debate, but they decided they have heard enough, or they have pretended they have heard, and have imposed time allocation on this particular bill. This is one of many bills on which they have imposed time allocation. In Parliament, they have imposed time allocation over 60 times, and if we include committees, we are almost at the 300-point mark.

It is important to talk about how we got to a point where we suddenly have to rush through the bill. The minister of state consulted on this for about two years, and then all of a sudden there seems to be a rush to get the bill through. There have been concerns about retirement security for some time, while the Canada pension plan, and I repeat, the Canada pension plan has been secure for at least 75 years. It is not just the CPP that has been secure, but also QPP.

Canadians also need to save more for retirement to live comfortably. We all agree with that.

It was in 2009 that the Conservatives announced the consultation on pension reform. Now, all of a sudden, as I said, it has been a rush. In December 2010, the Conservatives announced this program, I will not call it a scheme, but a program.

I will wrap it up. I have a lot more notes that I could go through.

Retirement income for Canadians is important. Pensions all of a sudden have become an issue. It has always been an issue, but as we get older it becomes a greater issue.

The government has created a crisis by changing the age of retirement for being able to collect OAS. I am in favour of the flexibility the OAS will provide, but I am not in favour of changing the age from 65 to 67. One of the first people it would affect would be me. The government will be taking about $12,000 out of my pocket, and I have not even got there yet.

I do not see how Canadians could be happy with that. I do not need the money, but imagine how Canadians my age, who are relying on this money, feel about $12,000 being thrown away overnight like that.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, with whom I sat on the finance committee, for his speech. I disagreed with most of it, but I do appreciate his time.

Part of the member's argument is that there should be a voluntary opportunity to contribute to CPP. However, in the same speech the member argued that taxpayers do not have the money to contribute to a pooled registered plan. If they do not have the money for a pooled registered plan, how would they have money for the voluntary aspect of the CPP?

It is a defeatist argument, and it does not make any sense. The member cannot argue in one sense in one area and then argue the opposite in the same speech.

The member talked about how the Liberal Party put the CPP back on its financial feet. However, it was forced to do that after it took all the money out of the plan. They had to get it back on its feet, so they did something in the 1990s.

If this voluntary CPP contribution plan would be effective and the right thing to do, why did they not consider it when they were doing those changes in the 1990s?

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I will address the member's first point.

The speech I gave was totally coherent. It is very easy. If we use CPP as an example, we would not force it upon all companies to contribute for all their employees because some companies cannot afford to, but some companies can.

The reason some companies would not have a pooled registered pension plan, as I stated, is because they are too small to even administer or handle the extra paper, as they are overloaded. That is the reality.

However, if there were enough employees who want to opt in with the CPP, eventually everybody will. It may start with 1¢ a pay, 10¢ a pay, $1, $10, or whatever it may be, but at least the system is there and already set up.

We have spoken to the people from CPP and QPP, and they are willing and able to do this. I do not see what the big deal is. I do not know why we have to make bankers and insurance companies richer by setting up a separate program.

Also, the Liberal government did not take money away from anything. The CPP is a totally independent board that administers money independently. None of that money was ever transferred.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my former employer set up a pooled registered pension plan, to which the employer contributed, but only a fraction of the employees took advantage of it, probably because most employees worked part-time and did not have the money to invest. It is a similar situation in my riding, because many people have a very tight budget and do not have even $5 or $10 to set aside every week.

We know that 74% of Canadians do not invest in RRSPs because they do not have the means to do so. Despite that, the Conservatives' plan today is to pass the bill quickly through a time allocation motion, claiming that there is a huge demand for these plans.

I would like to hear what my Liberal colleague has to say, as he perhaps touched on this issue earlier in his speech.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for the neighbouring riding of Hochelaga. Our ridings are facing similar challenges. In fact, some areas of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve and Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel are very poor.

The hon. member raised some very important points. According to the Liberal Party, we should start with a voluntary program. Are we going to ask people who work part-time and earn $100 a week—like my son who has just started working— to contribute 20% of their salary to a retirement plan? That is unacceptable.

For that reason, we believe that we must start by deducting the amounts already set out in the law. Later, we could increase these deductions by establishing criteria that we will have discussed beforehand. This is not something we should impose today. The government should not be imposing a gag order on a bill that should be debated.

I do not understand this government's attitude. There are a number of things that are more important than retirement plans for people who are already rich and are already making significant contributions to their RRSPs. In my opinion, the issues this country must address today are pensions, students and young people.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on the response from the member. I want it to be clear and on the record that it was the current government that brought in the process that contributions to CPP cannot be raided of any surpluses by any government in the future. That was our doing, our policy.

Based on the member's comments, I assume the member is in support of and congratulates the government in making sure that future governments cannot raid surpluses, as previous governments have done in the past.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the only thing this government has done in terms of raiding was to set up an independent unemployment board and dedicate $1 billion to it. It already has a deficit of $3 billion or $4 billion after three years. This government has only been in power for six years and has done nothing but tax Canadians and put them in the situation they are today.

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to be sharing my time with the member for Brandon—Souris.

Our government understands that hard-working Canadians and seniors want an effective and sustainable retirement income system that will help them achieve their retirement goals. That is why I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-25, an act that would implement the federal framework for pooled registered plans, or PRPPs.

PRPPs would mark a significant step forward in improving Canada's retirement income system by providing a new pension option to Canadians. Currently, 60% of Canadians do not even have access to a workplace pension plan. Most of these Canadians work for small and medium-sized businesses or are self-employed. Clearly, this represents a gap in Canada's retirement income system, a gap that PRPPs would fill.

PRPPs would allow these Canadians to access a pension plan for the very first time. In short, PRPPs would be a broad-based, low-cost, privately administered pension plan option. We may think of it this way: pooling pension savings would spread the cost of administering the pension funds over a large group of people. This would allow plan members to benefit from lower investment management costs, lower than those typically associated with the average mutual fund. Do members know what this would mean? It would mean that more Canadians would have more money left in their pockets for when they retire.

Simply put, the PRPP is the most effective and targeted way to address the gap in Canada's retirement income system. How will it do that, one might ask? PRPPs would address this gap by providing a new, accessible, straightforward and administratively low-cost retirement option for employers to offer to their employees; allowing individuals who currently may not participate in a pension plan, such as the self-employed or employees of companies that do not offer pension plans, to make use of this new option; enabling more people to benefit from lower investment management costs that result from membership in a large pooled pension plan; allowing for the portability of benefits, facilitating an easy transfer between plans; and, finally, ensuring that funds would be invested in the best interests of plan members.

Clearly, PRPPs are what Canada's retirement income system has been waiting for. This is why it is so important that the provinces follow the lead of our government and implement PRPPs as quickly as possible. Doing so would enable Canadians from coast to coast to coast to take advantage of this great new pension option.

Unfortunately, not everyone feels the same way. While our government is trying to implement PRPPs, the NDP would rather take the irresponsible and reckless route. It wants to double CPP. Do people know what that would do? It would result in higher CPP contribution rates for employers, employees and the self-employed. In the case of small and medium-sized business owners, it would act as a payroll tax, and that is a tax on job creators.

Members need not take my word for it. Let us hear what the Canadian Federation of Independent Business had to say. According to its research, “to double CPP benefits would kill 1.2 million person-years of employment in the short term”. Only the NDP would propose something so reckless. That is the difference between our Conservative government and the irresponsible NDP.

While our government is committed to generating economic growth and long-term prosperity, the NDP has no problem jeopardizing Canada's fragile economic recovery by imposing higher taxes on job creators. That, to me, is unbelievable.

It should be clear that doubling the CPP is the wrong decision for Canada and our economy. Unlike the NDP, our government believes that lower taxes help to generate economic growth and create jobs for Canadians.

Let us just look at the facts. Since July 2009, more than 750,000 net new jobs have been created. What is more, Forbes magazine ranks Canada as the best place for businesses to grow and create jobs. When it comes to the economy, there is no doubt why Canadians trust this government. This government gets results. That is why Canadians trust this government to keep Canada's retirement income system strong.

I will take a moment to tell the House just how much our government has done to ensure that Canada's retirement income system will continue to be the envy of the world.

Since 2006, our government has increased the age credit amount by $1,000 in 2006 and by another $1,000 in 2009. Next, we doubled the maximum amount of income eligible for the pension income credit to $2,000. Our government introduced pension income splitting, and we increased the age limit for maturing pensions and registered retirement savings plans, RRSPs, to 71 from 69 years of age.

What is more, budget 2008 introduced the tax-free savings account, which is particularly beneficial to seniors as it helps them to meet their ongoing savings needs on a tax-efficient basis. Our record also includes important improvements to several specific retirement income supports. Budget 2008 increased to $3,500 the amount that can be earned before the GIS is reduced. This means GIS recipients will be able to keep more of their hard-earned money without any reduction in GIS benefits. Budget 2008 also increased flexibility for seniors and older workers with federally regulated pension assets that are held in life income funds.

Budget 2011, the next phase of Canada's economic action plan, announced new measures to improve seniors' financial security and ensure they can benefit from and contribute to the quality of life in their communities. The plan includes a new GIS top-up benefit targeted to the most vulnerable seniors. Since July 1, 2011, seniors with little or no income have been receiving additional annual benefits of up to $600 for single seniors and $840 for couples.

The plan also provides an additional $10 million over two years to enhance the new horizons for seniors program. This additional funding will enable more seniors to participate in social activities, pursue an active life and contribute to their community. It will also provide funding for projects that will increase awareness of elder abuse and promote volunteering, mentoring and improved social participation of seniors.

Canadians just have to look at our record to know that this Conservative government is on their side, and the proposed PRPP is just the latest example. However, members need not take my word for it. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce states:

PRPPs—with simple and straightforward rules and processes—will give many businesses the flexibility and tools they need to help their employees save for retirement.

Greg Thomas, the federal and Ontario director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, says:

Canadians will be able to save more for retirement with this new pension plan. People saving for retirement will enjoy lower costs and more flexibility throughout their working lives.

It seems clear to me and to Canadians that PRPPs are the way to go.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his speech.

We know that the tax-free savings account is one way of saving available to Canadians and that it is often the wealthiest people who can take advantage of these accounts. In general, it is rich people who can take advantage of these accounts or people who are at a point in their lives where they are transferring their pension funds into tax-free savings accounts to save on taxes and ensure that they have more money for their retirement.

I would like to ask a question about pension funds because we have spoken about them a number of times since this morning. Since when is a pension fund considered to be a withholding tax for employers? Why are we requiring workers, but not employers, to contribute to this pension fund?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as a small and medium-sized business person in my previous career path, I can tell members that my business struggled with options to provide security to our employees. We used, for example, group RRSPs in our business as one means of providing an option to our staff, our team.

To me, this plan is the perfect opportunity to provide a low-cost, flexible product or option with a greater ability of employees to get in. It will give our staff the opportunity to participate in something that they simply never had before.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member himself would no doubt acknowledge that the number of individuals who will benefit from this particular legislation is somewhat limited.

There are a large number of Canadians, and there is some value in terms of establishing this fund. It can be used as a tool to facilitate additional retirement funds for many seniors going forward. However, the vast majority of Canadians are quite concerned about the future of CPP. They are looking for the Government of Canada to sit down with the provinces and look at ways to enhance the quality of life for future retirees by making a more sincere, genuine investment in CPP.

Can the member can provide his perspective on CPP versus this particular pooled pension plan, and whether it would be worth the government's time and effort to work with the provinces to improve the CPP?

[John Carmichael, Conservative, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has asked a good question that is obviously at the root of the decision process that evolved the PRPP.

First, two years ago the government met with finance ministers across the country and tried to arrive at a solution for reviewing CPP. There was no unanimity. The finance ministers unanimously agreed that PRPP would provide a new and more flexible tool that would bring more Canadians into the net of those who would like to participate in such a program.

The hon. member asked about CPP versus PRPP. Clearly, when I look at CPP and some of the comments that have been made today and in previous debates about doubling CPP, the extra cost to employees and employers and the tax costs to employers make it untenable and tremendously expensive for an employer in a small or medium-sized business or someone who is self-employed to participate, whereas the PRPP truly gives the benefit of that flexibility and a new opportunity.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand and speak to Bill C-25.

I would think that all members of the House would see this as a benefit to all Canadians, particularly, as previously stated, the self-employed, small and medium-sized businesses and organizations that are probably too small to have their own plan but would like to offer another form of investment in the people they employ and an opportunity for people to grow within that company and stay with it based on the fact that they would have a plan at the end of the day that provides for their retirement.

As many are aware, our government understands the importance of a secure and dignified retirement for people who spent their entire lives building a better and more prosperous Canada and for their families themselves. This legislation would take Canada's retirement income system one step further by helping more Canadians realize their retirement goals.

A lot of work was put into developing this proposal. Canada's retirement system is strong, but that does not mean it cannot be improved, that we cannot offer enhancements to pick up those individuals outside of the circle and offer them something better and an opportunity to invest for their retirement. This legislation addresses exactly that.

We all have memories of the crisis of 2008 and how it brought out concerns with regard to retirement. We all asked ourselves if our pension would be adequate, if we would be able to retire in the style we choose. I suspect upon reflection many people found they would not be able to. Things changed dramatically after 2008. If people were in the stock market or in RRSPs or in any type of investment, they took a hit. There is no question about it. The proposal we are putting forward would address that.

We did not do this blindly. We did it through co-operation and discussion with provinces and finance ministers across Canada, with people in our communities and, as the previous speaker mentioned, small business people. I was a small business person too. We always looked for opportunities to provide our employees with better security and better programs. Quite often we had to make the decision that we could not afford it.

This would address many of those issues. As I said, we did not do this blindly. We did it with a lot of consultation. We are trying to provide Canadians with an adequate standard of living upon retirement, and that is what everyone wants.

During the consultation period we found out that modest and middle income Canadians risked facing retirement with insufficient savings. Of particular concern was the declining participation in employer-sponsored RPPs. The proportion of working Canadians with such plans declined from 41% in 1991. Canadians are not taking full advantage of other retirement saving tools, like the RRSP.

I have been told that there is $600 billion in unused RRSP room. That is a clear indication that Canadians have priorities, and their families are their priorities. Sometimes we make those decisions and forget about the future. We need to always be aware of that and have that in our view.

With these findings, our government went to work on behalf of Canadians. We consulted, we met with provincial and territorial counterparts and held discussions with many businesses and we came to today's legislation.

In short, PRPPs are a new, innovative, privately administered, low-cost and accessible pension option to help Canadians meet their retirement goals.

PRPPs are particularly important and significant for small and medium-sized businesses. It is quite often unaffordable for business owners to provide these types of benefits. The bill would give them that opportunity, because it would enable owners and employees alike to have access to a large-scale, low-cost private pension plan for the first time. We basically would piggyback on larger corporations. We would get a better buy-in and we would get a better return because of the pooled funds.

Professional administrators would be subject to a fiduciary standard of care to ensure that funds were invested in the best interests of the plan. That is obviously a given, but I think it needs to be said.

By pooling pension savings, PRPPs would offer Canadians greater purchasing power. Basically, we would be buying in bulk. We would be getting a bigger, better deal for less money. By achieving lower prices than would otherwise be available to Canadians, it would mean more money left in the pockets of those same Canadians when they retire.

The design of the plan would also be straightforward to allow for simple enrolment and management. People in small and medium-sized businesses, the self-employed, I suspect, and the employees themselves will like the simplified form.

Finally, they are intended to be largely harmonized from province to province, which further lowers administrative costs and makes the transferability a lot easier to deal with.

Overall, these design features would remove any of the traditional barriers that might have kept some employers from offering pension plans to their employees.

It is my belief that this would lead to a greater willingness for small and medium-sized businesses to offer PRPPs. That is crucial. It is crucial because, incredibly, more than 60% of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. That is a huge number. When the members opposite look at it and talk to their friends, they will see it would include a lot of the people who support them and work with them in their day-to-day lives, and it is important that we try to include them in the discussion.

With PRPPs, participation would be encouraged by automatic enrolment of employees into a PRPP where an employer offered one. The automatic enrolment would encourage regular savings by making participation the default choice of employees who do not actively make a decision to opt out.

I remember the best advice I ever received as a young person entering the workforce in a family business was from a financial advisor who told me to just take a little bit off my cheque every month as I would never miss it. Then, as I grew older and my needs changed and my income earnings changed, I could increase it. It is the best advice I have ever received and the best advice I have ever given my children or their friends.

Canada's finance ministers decided to proceed with the PRPP framework precisely because it was considered an effective and appropriate way to target the modest and middle-income individuals who may not be saving enough for retirement, particularly those who currently do not have access to an employer-sponsored pension plan. These PRPPs would strike the right balance.

I know that if the NDP members had their way they would double CPP benefits and increase payroll taxes on small and medium-sized businesses, but that is not the way this government operates. At a time when Canada's economic recovery is still fragile, imposing a job-killing tax on the creators of those very jobs would be simply irresponsible.

PRPPs would be an efficiently managed privately administered pension plan that would provide greater choice to employers and individuals and promote pension coverage and retirement saving.

Once the provinces put in place their PRPP legislation, the legislative and regulatory framework would be operational. This would allow administrators to develop and offer plans to Canadians and their employers. Working together with the provinces, I know and I am confident that we can get these important new retirement vehicles up and running for Canadians in a timely manner.

It is important to remember that PRPPs would not just stand by themselves. They would be part of a bigger picture, part of Canada's retirement income system. We must always remember that. This bill is designed to help the many who do not qualify or are unable to have a pension plan within the confines of where they work. I know the Minister of State for Finance has gone to great lengths to listen to Canadians and to hear what they asked for and what they need. I believe this bill responds to their needs in a very positive way.

I encourage all Canadians and all members of Parliament to support this legislation.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

Something similar was tried in Australia more than a decade ago, and the results were not encouraging. After a dozen or so years, people did not have more money. Their investments did not do better than the rate of inflation.

The members of this House know that the Canada pension plan has barely lost any ground, with barely a 1% drop in interest, while the stock market, in which the government would like Canadians to invest more of their pension and retirement savings, has declined by 11%. I would like to hear what he has to say about that.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the fact that 60% of the Canadian working public does not have access to this type of plan is the very reason we are considering it.

We have spoken to provinces, employers and employees. This appears to be the best vehicle for them to move forward with. It would be tightly managed by professionals. I believe very firmly that this would be an ideal opportunity for employers and employees to work together on a pension for each other.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to say that we could pick any point in time to suit an argument on the returns of the stock market.

The whole point behind the PRPP is that it is over a lifetime, with the dollar cost averaging over 40 years. With a tax-free savings account, RRSPs and now this program, we would provide Canadian working families a great opportunity for their retirement future.

I wonder if the member could talk about the importance of fiscal and financial literacy for Canadians of all ages moving forward for their retirement.

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is extremely important. When we are moving into a program that is new to a lot of people, the understanding of it is very important. The member for Edmonton—Leduc has put forward a bill regarding financial literacy, which is of utmost importance.

As I said earlier, as a young first-time employee, it was the experience and depth of a senior statesman who gave me the advice I needed. Trust was a big part of it, but I believe and think it is imperative that all Canadians understand what they are signing up for, what the benefits are and what the long-term benefits are for their families.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we clearly do not have the same definition of financial security. This bill clearly indicates that the administrator administers all the plan assets, pays himself management fees, a margin, bonuses and that anything left over goes into the fund.

The plan member has no guarantee of a return. Even worse, the member cannot plan his retirement because he will have absolutely no idea of the amount accumulated. Can that be called a pension plan? It certainly cannot. Above all, there should not be closure on this bill, especially in light of the fact that Nortel could lose $7 billion that could be directed into its pension fund. And yet, the government is not doing anything. Why not?

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, like anything in this world, we can look at it as the glass being half full or half empty. We on this side look at the world as the glass being half full and wonder how to continue to add to that glass.

The bottom line is that 60% of all working Canadians do not have any form of pension plan within their area of work. The bill is designed to address that. It is based on a collection of information from the owners of businesses, employees and professionals across the world. I wish I could give every member a guarantee in life, but that is not how it works. What we have to do is give them the best opportunity.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it should come as no surprise that I disagree profoundly with my colleague from Brandon—Souris, as I disagree with his party on the policy direction they are taking. I even disagree with just about everything the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance said. I think those guys are going down the wrong road and are doing the dirty work for corporate Canada once again.

Here are the origins of the bill. Thomas d'Aquino, when he was the head of the Business Council on National Issues, and then John Manley, when he became the president of the chief executive officers, or whatever they call themselves—the Grand High Poobahs of, really, the unelected Prime Minister of Canada, which is essentially what he is--declared that what was really holding back Canadian productivity was “legacy costs”. That is a nice way of saying those dirty pensions that our predecessors got into in the 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. That was back when we used to negotiate fair wages for working people, back when working people and their employers would sit down and put together a sensible benefit package with a real benefit plan for their retirement years. All of a sudden, the corporate world has declared that unaffordable and it does not like having the burden of legacy costs.

We can even look at what happened in 2008 with the economic downturn. As soon as the auto industry got into trouble, what did the executives of the auto industry say? It had nothing to do with the cars they were producing or their management skills or the way that they had dropped the ball and made products that nobody wanted to buy anymore. Right away they said that the reason they were not productive was because of the legacy costs. They said that it was the pension plans that were dragging them down. They said that something needed to be done about the pension plans so they trooped down here to their friends, the guys who they bought and paid for and put into power, and complained to them that they had to do something about these pensions.

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant.

The Conservatives put it in fine print so the world can see. They put in place this disingenuous bill with a title that actually uses the words “registered pension plan” in the title. This is another example of the creative writing class that takes place somewhere down in the bowels of the Conservative Party's black operations department. They develop these names that have nothing to do with the bill. In fact, they are 180 degrees opposite to the true intent.

There is nothing about this that is a pension plan. It does not bear any resemblance to a pension plan. It is a savings scheme that, frankly, is no different from what ordinary workers could do today if they were lucky enough to make enough to set money aside in an RRSP. They could put a little more money aside in an RRSP and have the same net effect as this, except that they would be gouged even further by the financial sector that also stands in the wings waiting to benefit from this huge shift of money that should normally be going into a pension vehicle such as a proper registered retirement pension plan or, the best retirement vehicle that we have, the Canada pension plan.

And you wonder, Mr. Speaker, why I have strongly held views on this issue?

I represent the riding of Winnipeg Centre and that, frankly, has been the home of two of the greatest champions of social justice that our country has ever known. In 1919, the Government of Canada wanted to send J.S. Woodsworth to prison for his role as a leader of the 1919 general strike. The good people of Winnipeg Centre sent him to Parliament instead where he became the founder and first leader of the CCF. He served there until 1942 when he died. Then the good people of Winnipeg Centre elected the person who came to be known as the father of the Canada pension plan, Stanley Knowles.

J.S. Woodsworth, while he was here, managed to wrestle old age security out of the Liberal government of the day. William Lyon Mackenzie King had a minority government. J.S. Woodsworth had two members, A.A. Heaps and J.S. Woodsworth were called the Ginger group. They were the Independent Labour Party, predating the CCF. They went to Mackenzie King and told him that they would support his government and prop it up if he would introduce old age security.

We have a letter on file at the NDP headquarters today that is signed by William Lyon Mackenzie King agreeing to that. It took him seven years to do it. It was 1926 by the time he actually fulfilled that promise. However, William Lyon Mackenzie King yielded to the pressure of the ginger group. The member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre managed to negotiate some semblance of pension.

When Stanley Knowles was elected, he not only brought in the Canada pension plan, the second initiative was the indexing of the Canada pension plan. Now, at a 1% operating cost, the Canada pension plan with a small amount of contribution yields a guaranteed benefit to Canadians in the neighbourhood of $900 or $1,000 a month. That is a good return. That is in the best interests of Canadians.

I am worried that as the government puts in phony bills like this and phony diversions like this, it will siphon off attention to, contributions in and participation in vehicles that work, like the Canada pension plan. It is as if it is throttling down the emphasis on the Canada pension plan.

We, when we form government in 2015, intend to undertake a comprehensive overhaul of the Canada pension plan, which will be meaningful support in old age security for Canadians. It has been charted out and it is part of our platform. It will be the most effective investment vehicle ever. Even if the Canadian pension plan as we know it were doubled, as being proposed by the NDP, the total old age security coming from that would still be less than social security in the United States. Social security in the United States has a maximum benefit of about $30,000 a year. If we take the CPP as it is today, even adding on the old age security of under $7,000 a year, that still only comes up to about $19,000 a year. We are well behind other countries, even the United States, in our social security benefits for seniors.

It frustrates me how disingenuous the Conservatives are when they introduce a bill that purports to be a pension plan for ordinary Canadians. I just heard the member for Don Valley West saying that his employees could never have a pension plan if it were not for this. He said that he had worked for years and all his employees never had any benefits. Maybe if he had given them a raise in pay they would have been able to buy some old age security. Why did the member not put a pension plan in his company? That is what we used to do in the old days, we had corporate social responsibility. We had capitalists with a social conscience. That seems to be gone.

Capital has no conscience. If it were not for the NDP here to impose some conscience into that party, it would just be following loyally and faithfully behind the Business Council on National Issues, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and all the other dummy outfits that undermine the basic needs of Canadians for their own selfish self-interest.

We can look at the handout this is to the financial sector. We can look at the dough they will make by managing all this dough again. It is appalling, frankly, how they gouge, and the percentages they take for moving money around. The best bargain is the Canada pension plan with an operating cost of less than 1%.

This bill diminishes and undermines the systems that work and would put in place a system that will not be effective and will be no better than issuing a piggy bank. The Conservatives might as well give every Canadian a piggy bank and say, “I know you have not had a raise for seven or eight years but here is a piggy bank. Put more money into it and you will have more money to spend when you retire.”

That is not creative. There are no financial geniuses over there. That is like pulling a sedated rabbit out of a tattered old top hat and trying to convince people it is magic. It is not magic.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Mr. Speaker, one does not know where to begin except to correct my hon. friend across the way.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance is the female member from Saint Boniface, an MP we are all very proud of.

I would also remind the member of that great saying, “Socialism works until you run out of other people’s money to spend”. Many countries in Europe are finding out that other people simply do not have any money.

Given the member's evident disdain for corporations and the corporate world, when will the member be making the recommendation to all of his union friends and the unions he knows and purports to represent that they should divest all of their pension funds from the nasty corporations, especially the energy and financial corporations?

Will the member have the courage to recommend that kind of divesture?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am very proud of the years that I have spent negotiating on behalf of ordinary working people as a trade unionist. We believe that fair wages and benefits benefit the whole community.

I was in the United States recently and saw a bumper sticker that read, “At the least the war on the middle class is going well”. That is about the size of it. There is a war on the middle-class. For some reason, the government is trying to lower our expectations so we will accept globalization unquestioningly, that we have to expect less and that there is no way we can afford a living wage, fair wages or to live as well as our parents did.

On this side of the House, we have dedicated our lives to elevating the standard of wages and working conditions for working people. That side of the House seems determined to undermine and diminish the wages and standard of living of Canadians. Why would anyone elect a government that would cut his or her wages? We had this debate yesterday on the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act. It seems it is one thing after another. It is this war on labour on the left.

In whose interest is it to undermine the retirement and social security of Canadians by pieces of paper like this that are not worthy of the consideration of the chamber? Legacy costs are not the answer.

[Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet, NDP, Hochelaga, QC]

Mr. Speaker, 74% of Canadians do not contribute to RRSPs, mainly because they cannot afford to.

In my hon. colleague's opinion, why do the Conservatives believe that people could afford this program more than an RRSP?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the figure is 64% of Canadians made no contributions to RRSPs. They do not have the money. They cannot afford it. This is another instrument that would encourage them to save more. It is like pushing the onus on individuals. I do not mind individuals standing up for themselves in their own best interests, but if they do not have the money to save currently, where will they find the money to contribute to this new savings scheme?

There is nothing that adds to the retirement security of ordinary Canadians in this bill. It is an illusion. As I say, it is not sorcery. It is bad magic. The government is trying to snow Canadians by putting the words “pension plan” in the title of a bill. It has nothing to do with a pension plan. It is a phony piece of work. Canadians should not fall for it. They deserve better.

[James Rajotte, Conservative, Edmonton—Leduc, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy listening to my friend across the way. I rarely agree with him, but I do enjoy listening to him.

I want to get back to the bill itself and the pooled registered pension plan. He talked about labour. In fact, Mr. Phil Benson with Teamsters Canada made a presentation to the committee on this bill and he put forward some very practical suggestions in terms of dealing with it at the regulatory stage. I will Mr. Benson. He stated:

No single solution will resolve the retirement savings issue. I think the PRPP proposal will move the ball closer to the goal line. Improving savings, reducing risk, and reducing costs is a winning formula. We think our suggestions will make this an even better product.

Would the member opposite, who has a very strong labour background, respond to the endorsement by Mr. Phil Benson with Teamsters Canada of the pooled registered pension plan? This is a very large union in Canada that has endorsed our government's initiative with respect to providing retirement options for people, particularly the 60% of Canadians who do not currently have a retirement option.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, if we are trading quotes, I will read what this guy from the EES Financial Services, a mutual fund fee organization, said. He stated:

In general terms, the PRPP program is no different than an RRSP. Contributions generate tax deductions, enable tax-deferred growth, tax is payable on withdrawals and for the most part, will be invested in mutual funds – pooled investments that according to a 2006 report...are subject to far higher fees in Canada than in any other country. It’s no wonder the investment and insurance industries are applauding the introduction of PRPPs.

It is like handing over a gift to Bay Street. It is like giving it a half a billion dollars worth of management fees per year to manage the investment of this new mutual fund. All this is is a glorified mutual fund. If people did not have enough money to buy an RRSP before, they probably will not have enough money to participate in this PRPP baloney.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to Bill C-25, the Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act. I would like to say from the outset that like my colleagues from the NDP and from all the opposition parties, I am very disappointed in this bill, because contrary to what the title suggests, this can hardly be called a pooled pension plan.

Before getting into the details of the bill, I would like to put into context the situation with pension plans and the Canadians who are depending on them. According to the Conference Board of Canada, 1.6 million seniors in Canada are living below the poverty line, and this bill will do nothing to help them. What is more, according to the Canadian Labour Congress, 12 million Canadians lack a workplace pension plan. Unfortunately, we do not believe that this bill will do much to help those 12 million Canadians gain access to a pension plan either.

By OECD standards, the CPP and QPP systems are relatively inadequate. Other similar countries have guarantees and much more generous public pension plans than ours. In the United States, maximum social security benefits are about $30,000 a year. Here in Canada they are about $12,000 a year and, if we add the $7,000 a year from old age security for the less fortunate, that is still far from what is being done in the United States.

According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, most Canadian workers do not have RRSPs. Over the past few years, only roughly 25% of Canadians have contributed to their RRSP, which is far from what it should be. That suggests that, unfortunately, Canadians do not have the means to contribute.

In fact, I am disappointed because this bill will simply create a new type of savings plan enabling the funds from plan members' accounts to be pooled in order to reduce the costs associated with the management of investments and of the plan itself. The program is called a pooled registered pension plan, but it would be more appropriate to call it a savings plan, because this bill cannot guarantee that it will provide any retirement income.

This bill is designed for self-employed individuals and employees of small and medium-sized businesses, which are often unable to manage a private sector pension plan. The system created by the passage of this legislation would be a defined contribution plan. Employees would contribute a portion of their earnings to a retirement fund, and that money would be invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and so on. Some companies might match their employees' contributions, up to a certain percentage.

The account grows through contributions and investment income until retirement. However, with this kind of defined contribution plan, there can be no guarantee about the amount of money that will be available upon retirement. Thus, it is the individual, the employee, who assumes all of the risks associated with the investments. With this kind of system, the amount of money available upon retirement depends on market fluctuations, and markets have not exactly been stable over the past 10 years. I invested in RRSPs and I have less money now than when I invested 10 years ago. These investments are not reliable; they are risky.

Defined contribution plans do not provide the same level of income security as defined benefit plans, such as the CPP and the QPP, which guarantee a certain payout upon retirement. Pooled registered pension plans would be managed by regulated financial institutions, such as banks, insurance companies and investment companies. The latest numbers on CPP investment returns show that the plan has lost hardly any ground over the past few years—less than 1%—while the stock markets, in which the government wants Canadians to invest their savings through pooled registered pension plans, have declined by about 11%.

Pooled registered pension plans will not provide workers with greater retirement income security because they will simply encourage families to gamble their retirement savings on the stock market, which often goes down instead of up.

As I said, anyone who has ever watched his RRSP take a dive knows how risky it is to invest his savings in the stock market. The government is so out of touch with reality that it is encouraging families to double down on what has turned out to be a system that does not work very well. With such an unstable economy, families do not need to take on any more risk. They need the stability of the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan. Many economists and provincial leaders have said as much over the past few years, but the government has turned its back on families and refused to consider this solution.

Bill C-25 does not cap administrative fees or costs and assumes that competition will keep costs low. Once again, the government is dreaming in colour because it is relying on the invisible hand of the market and hoping that that alone will keep administrative costs and fees as low as possible, but as the Australian experience proves, that hope is in vain. More than 10 years ago, Australia created a similar plan. The results were disappointing, to say the least. The plan had been in existence for 12 years when the Australian government-ordered review of it showed that even though people were saving money through mandatory contributions, the returns on their investments were no greater than inflation. In many years, returns were lower than inflation.

The report attributed these disappointing results to the very high costs, despite the fact that it was originally thought that competition among companies would lead to lower costs. That was unfortunately not the case. However, the Conservatives do not want to learn from the Australians' experience, which was essentially a failure. With this bill, the government would rather hide behind its ideological ideas and make decisions without truly examining the issue.

In six years, the government has unfortunately not done much to help provide security for Canadian retirees. This bill appears to have been hastily drafted in response to pressure from union groups, seniors' groups and political parties, particularly the NDP, which, after the last election campaign, proposed an increase in Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan benefits.

Bill C-25 is a half measure, when what we truly need is some real, concrete action. Canadians deserve and want more than what the government is proposing. Once again, the Prime Minister is putting the interests of Bay Street giants and insurance companies ahead of the interests of Canadians. It is time for the government to take real action to increase the number of Canadians who have access to retirement security and to lower the current number of 12 million Canadians who do not have access to these plans. Bill C-25 will not help achieve that objective.

Canadians do not need new private, voluntary savings plans. They really need concrete measures to ensure that they will be able to retire with dignity.

The NDP is proposing doubling the benefits provided by the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan to a maximum of close to $2,000 a month. The NDP wants to work with the provinces to make it easier for workers and employers who want to make voluntary contributions to individual public pension accounts. The NDP also wants to amend federal bankruptcy legislation to move pensioners and long-term disability recipients to the front of the line of creditors when their employers file for bankruptcy protection. The NDP also wants to increase the annual guaranteed income supplement in order to lift every senior in Canada out of poverty immediately.

The NDP understands that Canadians want more than what the government is proposing with the pooled registered pension plan. The NDP will obviously not support this bill because it merely offers a new type of savings plan and does not even come close to solving the problem of making pension plans accessible.

In closing, the NDP urges the government to abandon Bill C-25 at third reading and to come up with a real plan that will help the 12 million Canadians who do not have a pension plan and the 16 million seniors who are living below the poverty line.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague on his speech. I would like him to say a little more about how we can protect pensions. He gave the example of an individual who invests in RRSPs for 10 years and loses money when the value of the RRSPs then falls. So we lose money we invest for our retirement. He also said the measures proposed in the bill do nothing to provide better protection.

In addition, we might think of examples like Nortel, where the corporation came ahead of the employees. My colleague is certainly aware of that case. When we talk about retirement security for people who have worked hard all their lives and who invested their money, it is extremely important to protect their retirement pension. I would like to let my colleague talk some more about how we can better protect that, so it is better than what is proposed in this bill.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. The example of Nortel is in fact a good example, to show how unprotected pensions are. Last year, a number of people in my riding saw their pensions cut in half as a result of the liquidation of Nortel’s assets. That is simply scandalous.

We should bring back the bill that was introduced by the NDP, which proposed putting employee pension plans ahead of creditors. That would be a very good solution to protect Canadians from bankruptcies, when cases like Nortel occur. It would be an ideal solution to protect Canadians’ pension funds. However, the government bill before us simply adds another savings plan. Apart from people who are already contributing to an RRSP, there are really no more Canadians who will be contributing to it. In our opinion, it is a waste of effort.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am confused as to why the hon. member would not take up this opportunity.

The demographic we are talking about in the pooled pension system being offered is usually a demographic that is not covered by normal pension systems. I am a little confuse as to why he would not be supportive of a measure like this since it would help people. I am curious to know what his alternative is and why he is opposed to it.

[Sylvain Chicoine, NDP, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. There are a range of registered savings plans available. Unfortunately, companies do not use them very much. This will essentially be an additional plan being made available, but there are already numerous plans and they do not help Canadians to contribute to a pension plan.

We think the solution is to increase Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan benefits. That would cover all Canadians, who could contribute more and benefit more from it. These plans already exist; they are defined benefit or defined contribution plans. People know what they will be getting when they retire and so that tool, which already exists, makes it is easier to plan for retirement.

[Ted Menzies, Conservative, Minister of State (Finance)]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand and take us through to the beginning of question period.

I have listened to many of the debate today, or the false information, I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, and I am sure you have been able to recognize this, having listened to many of these debates. We have certainly given this fulsome debate in the House as well as in committee. We have brought in witnesses who talked about the benefits of the pooled registered pension plan.

It has been said many times, but not enough and it deserves repeating, that this will be a low-cost option to those Canadians, 60% of those in the workforce, who do not now have available to them a workforce pension plan that their employer can choose to contribute on their behalf. That is the option of the employer.

We, on this side of the House, think that option is exactly what our businesses want. They have asked us for an opportunity so they can choose to offer this pension option, this retirement option, this savings option to their employees and, if so, they can choose to contribute as well on their behalf.

We see it as accessible, which has been mentioned many times, by any Canadian. In many forums I have been asked if this is this only for small businesses. Absolutely not. It is available to any business that chooses to offer it.

For the first time in history, this is available to self-employed Canadians who can contribute to their retirement. A lot of self-employed Canadians have not had the option to become part of a larger pool at low cost, where the administration costs are low.

I have heard lots of comments from the other side that are very much ill-informed. Canada has been accused of having very high MER rates, management expense ratios, to put it in layman's terms, and of course the industry will complain that those are required because of the complications of the pensions they offer.

We have simplified it down so the parties that are interested, once they qualify, in offering the pooled registered pension plans. They have told us that they can bring their costs down very low.

We are trying to provide a realistic low-cost option so Canadians can actually participate in a larger pool, the same type of pool that the Canada pension plan and the Quebec pension plan is. That is what makes sense for Canadians.

The NDP continues to harp on the fact that all we should do is double the Canada pension plan. That absolutely negates the position in which many Canadians are. They do not want another mandatory reduction from their paycheque, and it would be mandatory, because that is the makeup of the Canada pension plan. Many people are saving in other ways and they do not want it deducted from their paycheque.

Many businesses have said that they are struggling to hire new people and make their businesses profitable. Now is not the time to add another cost, albeit a tax, on them contributing on behalf of their employees. This gives those businesses an option if they feel comfortable to offer a savings plan for their individual employees. That is very important.

We have a very good system in our country. The NDP loves to talk down our economy, our seniors and what a great country this is in which to live. We should be proud of the fact that we have a great country, a great financial system and a great retirement system for our seniors. It is the envy of the world.

I have spoken at many pension conferences in Canada and around the world, and I have also listened. Many approach us and ask how we have done it in Canada and could they follow our model. Many have asked about the pooled registered pension plan. They think it is a good idea and they would like to adopt it in their countries. Some people recognize that, but obviously not the opposition.

The opposition members stand over there and say that we have done little for seniors. We have done a lot for seniors. We have given the largest increase in the guaranteed income supplement for those low-income seniors. We on this side of the House thought that was a great idea. Apparently, the NDP did not like it because its members voted against it. They stand in here and say that they support seniors, yet they voted to keep them as low-income seniors. That is an incredible position for them to take.

We have the Canada pension plan. As I have said before, it is actuarially sound for 75 years. We co-share the jurisdiction of that with the provinces. It is in good shape. We have discussed whether we can increase that, and that discussion continues among our officials. As well, the Quebec pension plan is there for seniors.

We have the tax-assisted registered pension plans and registered retirement savings plans. Those are good. They have had some struggles, but, over the years, averaged out, they have done well.

However, we think there is an option that is missing, and that is the option for so many of our Canadian workers who do not have that.

In the last few minutes I have, let me just share a bit of the chronology from where we started.

In 2008, when we saw some of the insolvent pension funds in trouble, we realized we needed to look at those that were federally regulated. The Pension Benefits Standards Act had not been changed since 1985. We took a serious look at that, through consultation. We have improved that to protect the federally-regulated ones. We moved from there. We saw the challenges that individual pension funds were facing, so we moved to make improvements to them through a working group.

We did extensive analysis and we found out what segment of the Canadian population was not saving enough for their retirement. This is directed toward the middle section of income earners who need the support to help them save. This process will help them save and they are sharing in the contributions for that. Most Canadians think that is only fair that they help save for their own retirement.

We know the socialists love to share everybody else's money but their own. We would like to suggest that is probably not the way most Canadians think.

We have shared this challenge with our partners, the provinces.

I mentioned earlier how progressive the Quebec government had been on this. In fact, in its last two budgets, it has addressed this. It wants to move forward with it.

It is very unfortunate that the NDP is the sole roadblock in us being able to move forward, the Quebec government being able to move forward and other governments that actually want to put in place mirror legislation to this so we are able to provide pooled registered pension plans to those Canadians who want them and those Canadians who need them.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

Order, please. The time for government orders has expired. The hon. minister of state will have 11 minutes remaining when this matter returns before the House.

The House resumed from June 7 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 third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the official opposition critic for seniors, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-25 today.

I must begin by mentioning what our dear Prime Minister said a few months ago in Switzerland. During a speech, he said that Canada's aging population is a problem and that if the government does not tackle the problem, it may have even more serious consequences than the recent economic crises.

First, I would like to express the NDP's official position that the aging population is not a problem; it is a situation. And it is not a surprise situation. We have seen it coming for a long time. Today's 60- and 70-year-olds were not born yesterday. Not only is this not a problem, but I think we can view it as an asset. Canada's seniors are a tremendous resource. They have experience and they share their knowledge and experience. These people volunteer in their communities and in politics, and they spend precious time with their families. No matter how numerous our seniors, they are not a problem for our country.

Today, we should not be attacking the aging population, but we should simply know how to adapt. Yes, there are things that need to be done in this regard. As a country, we need to adapt to ensure that everyone can continue to live well and with dignity. We have known about and seen this demographic trend coming for a long time. One way to adapt is to ensure that the seniors of tomorrow will have reliable pension programs and, we hope, financial security that will enable them to live many more years after retirement in dignity and happiness.

Generally speaking, the fact that today we are talking about a bill on one specific pension program is good news because it means that Parliament is addressing the issue and wondering how it can help people retire with dignity.

However, there is something we do not agree on, and that is how to adapt and what tools to give people to ensure that they will be able to have a pleasant retirement.

What do people want exactly? I think that is a basic question that needs to be asked. What is the problem on the ground? What do people expect the government to do to help them?

I travelled all over Quebec. I visited over 30 towns and cities. People went out of their way specifically to address the issue of seniors' financial security. I heard a number of concerns, questions and fears. I would like to share some of them here today.

First of all, old age security is an important part of Canada's overall pension system. Old age security is universal. Everyone is entitled to receive it when they turn 65. Everyone counts on it, especially middle-income families and people who live below the poverty line—people who do not make enough money to set some aside in savings plans, people who have had an accident, people who have had to stop working for an extended period of time and perhaps have been unable to return to the labour market, people who were laid off at age 55 or 60 and who have not been able to find another job.

Old age security is an essential part of the system, and because of it, Canada can count itself among those countries that have a smaller percentage of seniors living in poverty. Despite that, there are plans to raise the age of eligibility for the program, which will unfortunately increase poverty among seniors. We have talked a lot about this issue. Given that this is not our primary focus here today, I will move on to some of the other subjects before us.

The Canada pension plan, much likes its equivalent in Quebec, is a pension plan that serves all workers. Regardless of the number of hours a person works and no matter what kind of employer he or she works for, everyone who accumulates hours of work contributes to the Canada pension plan or Quebec pension plan. Depending on the number of hours worked and the wages earned, everyone is entitled to receive a certain amount of money. However, this Canada pension plan payment is not enough to replace a person's salary in any meaningful way.

It has to be supplemented by something else. What is more, the Canada pension plan and old age security do not provide Canadians comfortable financial security at retirement either.

Another type of benefit people receive at retirement is an employer provided pension plan. Unfortunately, 12 million Canadians do not have one. Unfortunately, more and more businesses are declaring bankruptcy and are not reimbursing the employees' pension plans, which the employees were counting on for their retirement. Unfortunately, in many cases, these pension plans have been mismanaged by the employers and the benefits have had to be reduced, causing a great deal of discontent.

Something can be done to help Canadians who have employer provided pension plans, but many Canadians do not. What is the government doing for those who do not have an employer provided pension plan?

Another type of savings exists and that is everything to do with RRSPs, group RRSPs, TFSAs, et cetera. Again, many Canadians cannot invest in such plans. People who work full time and earn minimum wage are living below the poverty line. They can hardly put money into an RRSP or a TFSA. I will come back to that later. Here again, more needs to be done to allow Canadians to save for their retirement.

Yes, people have expectations of their government. They have worthwhile suggestions for solving the problems in Canada's pension system. I will come back to this later.

People want a reliable pension system that will provide them with a secure retirement. And I have excellent news: we can create such a system. We have the tools. We have the resources to provide seniors with greater financial security. All that is needed is a willingness to take this issue seriously and a little political courage. Unfortunately, we see no political courage in Bill C-25. This is not a strong, effective measure that will help Canadians save for their retirement, and that is too bad.

What does Bill C-25 really do for Canadians? That is a good question, because there is not much difference between a pooled registered pension plan and an RRSP, a group RRSP or a TFSA. There is some difference, of course, but it is not big enough to ensure that the 12 million Canadians who have no workplace pension plan will be able to retire worry-free. These measures are not really going to solve the problems I talked about earlier.

At present, 12 million Canadians do not have workplace pension plans and 31% of Canadians eligible to contribute to RRSPs do so. Why do almost 60% of eligible Canadians not contribute to an RRSP? Have the Conservatives asked themselves this question? It is important to know the answer. PRPPs and RRSPs are very similar. We have to wonder why Canadians who can contribute to an RRSP do not currently do so. Perhaps they would not contribute to PRPPs for the same reasons. It is important to ask the question.

Here is another statistic: 41% of Canadians have a TFSA. Why do approximately 60% of Canadians not have one? It is very pertinent to ask this question because, once again, if people have trouble making ends meet, and do not have enough income to live on and to support their children, they probably could not put money into a PRPP any more than they could into a TFSA or an RRSP.

Furthermore, 50% of Canadians who have a TFSA earn $100,000 or more.

Once again, what are we going to do for these middle- and low-income Canadians who have no retirement security. Is there a better way to help them than setting up a pooled registered pension plan?

Some countries have tried to implement PRPPs but have failed, whereas other countries have been successful. Let me expand on that. For instance, New Zealand and the United Kingdom implemented pooled registered pension plans and they were successful.

That makes you think. What are the differences between the program implemented in those countries and the program that the Conservatives want to implement? The biggest difference is that, in New Zealand and the United Kingdom, employers are required to contribute if the employee does. So it is a very attractive incentive for employees and it increases the amount of money that people can get after they retire. That has encourage with RRSPs or TFSAs, for example. Neither do we find it in the pooled registered pension plan proposed in Bill C-25.

In New Zealand and the United Kingdom, another incentive for people to contribute to pension plans is that the state provides a tax break or pays a bonus to employees who contribute to their pooled registered pension plans.

Countries that have had success with that kind of pension plan have much stronger, much more solid incentives and restrictions. I am not saying that a pooled registered pension plan would be the best solution, but I do want to stress that there are ways to make the tool much more attractive and much more effective.

In a number of cases, we wonder why the government is proposing a solution of this kind. I suggest a comparison with another situation that is being talked about a lot these days, the increase in the age of eligibility for old age security.

Why raise it by two years? A lot of questions remain for which we have no answers. By “we”, I do not just mean my colleagues and I, I also mean experts who also have no explanation as to why the government is moving in that direction.

First of all, what were the government's objectives for old age security? The government tells us that the program is not sustainable, but a number of experts say that indeed it is. Can we have the figures and the calculations? What is the objective that the Conservatives are trying to achieve by raising the age of eligibility for old age security. How much money do they feel is needed to make the program sustainable? We do not know.

The other day, an hon. member opposite told me that it is about plain old common sense, of very simple math. I am sorry, but calculations and arguments like that are not very convincing. Can you identify a clear problem and propose clear objectives that would allow us to analyze the various options and act accordingly?

What other options are being studied? There are other options. A bill presents one option to us, but what other options have been looked at? Why this option for the PRPP and not another? Why would another option not work? These are questions that have to be asked but have not been answered. It is difficult to work co-operatively and to propose specific initiatives when we have no idea of the basic objectives. What other options have really been studied? Why was this one chosen rather than another?

Lastly, what will the short-term, medium-term and long-term repercussions be? In other countries, an option like that was studied, put in place and did not work. Why would it be any different in Canada, with Bill C-25? I expect to get some very interesting answers. What can we do to ensure that it will work this time in Canada, when it has not worked in other countries?

It is a well-known fact that the NDP is proposing a solution other than the one proposed in Bill C-25. It proposes doubling the Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan benefits, rather than create a PRPP, first because of the management costs. How much will the management costs be for a PRPP? Once again, we do not really have an answer. The number is approximate, but it is certainly higher than the costs of managing the Canada pension plan. Then, it is much more egalitarian for certain segments of the population.

One of the examples I like to give is the example of women. The Canada pension plan takes into account the obligation of women to leave the work force if they have a child and the obligation of people to leave the work force if, for example, they have to take care of a family member who is ill. Women are often the ones who do that as well. A pooled registered pension plan does not take those obligations into account. People who have to stop contributing during a specific period will then be penalized through reduced benefits when they retire.

The Canada pension plan is a plan where the risk is assumed by everybody and, because everyone's contributions are grouped together, it makes up for the fact that some people have to take time off for an illness or disability or for family reasons.

Introducing PRPPs instead of improving CPP will lead to an increase in poverty among women. I do not think I need to go on at length about this, but there is much more poverty among senior women than senior men. Something must be done about this. It has to be taken into account. It cannot be ignored. It is a problem the government has to be sensitive to.

Risk sharing is also important. With CPP, everyone shares the risk, but with a PRPP, a single individual assumes the risk. I want to come back to what will happen to someone who lives longer. Since a PRPP is not a defined benefit plan, this person knows how much he is putting into the plan, but not how much he will get out of it. There is certainly a fixed amount. This means that someone who lives a long life will have to figure out how to manage his portfolio so that he has enough money to live on for the rest of his days. What are we saying? Should we hope that this person does not live too long, or else he will pay through the nose and live in poverty? It makes no sense. We can avoid this sort of situation by enhancing CPP.

The same applies to someone who becomes disabled at 58, for example. That person has to stop contributing and will be penalized. The individual has to bear all of the risk, but that risk could be shared by improving the Canada Pension Plan.

I still have so much to say, but I think I will end with some good news.

Canadians want to know that this is not the only way to do things. The Conservatives often argue that if they do not take this step, our economy will crumble and we will end up like this or that other country. That is not true. There are many ways to run a country and many ways to address a problem. There are alternatives to Bill C-25. As I mentioned earlier, the government could double Canada pension plan benefits. We think that can and should be done to ensure financial security for as many seniors as possible.

The government could also increase the guaranteed income supplement. I have talked at length about poverty among seniors. Currently, the government does not provide seniors with enough money to get them out of poverty. Seniors have to choose between buying food and buying medication. That is unacceptable in our society. The government should increase the guaranteed income supplement to ensure a certain level of dignity for our seniors.

There are still more things the government could do: leaving the old age security age at 65 is an obvious one for the NDP. Protecting employer-managed pensions and amending Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act are other options. There are many good things the government could do to ensure financial security for retired Canadians.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's remarks, but there was one comment right near the end that I really take exception to. She was commenting about the amounts given by government not being adequate. Well, the amounts given by government are actually the money that is earned by Canadians, so we simply cannot continue to spend other people's money. That is the NDP proposal.

I would like to ask my colleague why she would be opposed to extending the right to a workplace pension to Canadians who do not have that option now. Over 60% of Canadians currently do not have access to a workplace pension.

There are all kinds of small and medium-sized enterprises. We know that the small and medium-sized businesses in the country are the economic engine that keeps our country going, so why would she deny them that possibility? The small engine repair shop, a dental office or a hair salon are all examples of these kinds of business that up until now could not afford to go out and buy a pension plan, but if they pool their resources with others in similar professions, they could actually get a low-cost, effective pension plan. Why would she deny that to the 60% of Canadians who do not have access to it?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his very pertinent and intelligent question.

It is true that I am prepared to say that the pooled registered pension plan is not a problem in itself. I agree with it, but it is not the best solution. A number of Canadians are not able to put money aside in RRSPs. Will PRPPs really help those Canadians? Some, maybe, but certainly not all. We can do better, as I have been saying since this debate began.

Why not enhance Canada Pension Plan benefits? The program works well; it has very low management costs and the ability to handle risks collectively.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, prime ministers like Mackenzie King and Lester Pearson saw the value of retirement and the importance of providing a pension income for our seniors. Today we look at the foundation programs that were put into place by Liberal administrations in the past, such as the CPP, OAS and GIS. These programs have provided for seniors over generations now, and we believe in those programs.

In regard to this specific bill, there are provincial jurisdictions, we are told by the federal government, that support the need for having this bill passed so that this new pension option would be there for those few Canadians, and ultimately it could be quite a few. In particular, the Province of Quebec and the Province of Manitoba, where there is an NDP administration, seem to be supportive of having this pooled pension plan.

We in the Liberal Party see it as a small tool. It needs to be changed and it could be far more effective, but there does seem to be a desire to have it. Why would the NDP oppose it as at least a pension option? That seems to be all it really is. It is a very small one.

We too want to see the increases to programs like CPP, but this does seem to be a consumer-friendly option for individuals who might have additional pension money going forward. I do not quite understand why the NDP would oppose it as an option.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

But, Mr. Speaker, we also have to emphasize the fact that a lot of people are not in favour of creating savings schemes of this kind, but instead are in favour of enhancing the Canada Pension Plan, or its Quebec equivalent, the Régime des rentes du Québec.

I would like to quote from a recent study done by the Régime des rentes du Quebec, which states:

…this quick analysis shows that there may be a significant gap in the standard of living at retirement between those with fixed benefit pension plans and those who must rely only on RRSPs, RRIFs, LIRAs and LIFs.

We can add PRPPs to that list.

There is a better way to provide for people's financial security and quality of life than by creating a program like this. It is time to take decisive action, with political courage and with specific initiatives.

[Rathika Sitsabaiesan, NDP, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent intervention on this topic.

Recently at the World Economic Forum, our Prime Minister announced that there would be major transformations coming to Canada's retirement pension system.

The only transformative change that Canada really needs for retirement security is investment in our Canada pension plan and Quebec pension plan, yet the government once again is proposing another privately administered voluntary savings plan. However, statistics have shown and even members across the aisle have said that people are not participating in it, and that makes it difficult.

My colleague here has many suggestions. I wonder if she could elaborate very briefly on some suggestions that would be equitable, to lift every senior in Canada out of poverty rather than just the wealthy ones.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

First, I spoke a lot about old age security, an essential part of the social security net. Increasing the age of eligibility for this program would have a direct negative impact on people in the middle class and people living close to the poverty line.

There are other things that Canadians want to see us do about their retirement security. They are investing in RRSPs, but right now they are now seeing their RRSPs decrease because RRSPs depend on the stock market. That is not retirement security.

Canadians want a defined benefit pension plan. This means that they would be able to count on a set amount of money. Regardless of the amount, they must be able to count on a set amount.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, building on the previous several questions, it is clear to everybody on this side of the House and I think we all agree that what we need is a real CPP, expanded, enhanced and made functional.

Having said that, I am getting a lot of correspondence from small business people in my riding saying this is not great, but at least it would be something for small businesses and for people who do not currently have another vehicle.

My question to the hon. member is simple. Despite all the things we would like to see, which would be much better, does she think there is some potential for this to meet the needs of some people, and would there be any real harm in it if we were to go with the flow?

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond by talking about another very similar tactic, which we have seen in other cases.

Recently, the Conservative government announced that it was working very hard on combatting elder abuse because it had amended a small part of the law that makes it possible to ensure that elder abuse would be subject to a harsher penalty. That is the type of smoke and mirror show that the Conservatives like to put on. They brag about taking action for a cause, when really all they are doing is amending a small part of the law, and they could have done so much more.

Why not combat the real causes of elder abuse? Why not combat poverty among seniors? Why not ensure that they have access to affordable and adapted housing? Why not take strong measures to truly address the issues, rather than making big promises but very few changes?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to stand to talk about the pooled registered pension plan bill that is here before us.

I am going to talk a bit about some of my experiences as a small-business person and how this would help the employers, the employees and the entrepreneurial sector of our economy. The small businesses, as was said earlier, are the driving forces in our economy. We sometimes forget how important that sector is and how hard it is for them to save for retirement.

I am also going to talk a bit about what a pooled registered pension plan is, so that we can better understand what it is, how it works and what it would do.

If I have time, I am going to talk about the organizations and people out there who have talked positively about pooled registered pension plans, and I will try to convince some of my colleagues on the other side that this would be a great tool to put in the toolbox of pension saving.

First, let me talk about small businesses. Let me talk about small-business owners. In my past, I have certainly been a small businessman. I have been a mentor to other small-business people. Far too often the entrepreneurs in this country worry a lot about one thing in their business. That is the customer, the person who they are selling their product or their service to; that is their whole outreach. Small-business people and entrepreneurs are singularly focused to do what they do and do it right.

It is not that they, in any way, dislike their employees or do not want to do best by them, but something like putting together a pension plan for the employees would come under some of the other things that small business owners and entrepreneurs have to do. It is about their economy. It is about growing their business and serving their customers right.

Entrepreneurs, by their true nature, are usually very good at one thing, whatever it is. I rather like the food business and the customer service side of the food business. I was very focused and I knew I was very good at that. Others may be very good as insurance brokers, as mentioned earlier, as dentists or whatever. Whatever small-business owners are engaged in, they are usually absolute experts at the one thing they do.

But guess what? Small-business owners are the only people who get to make the decisions. They get to be the purchasing director, the person who ensures all the supplies show up and at the right price. They are also in charge of marketing, even though their business may not be about marketing. They are in charge of making sure customers come and are happy.

Most of the day, they spend their time being a coach, a trainer, helping their employees do the job right to serve their people properly. They are also financial planners because their bank will want to know what it is they are looking for. Sometimes they are nothing more than cleaners. If there is a spill, as owners, they are the ones who clean it up. That is what small-business people do: customer service, customer complaints. They are in charge of productivity. In a big business, there may be a whole department, but here in small-business and entrepreneurism, it is the owners. The owners of a small business are responsible for ensuring that happens. They are the accounts payable manager. They are the accounts receivable manager. They are all these things. As small-business people, they may be expert at one thing, but they are responsible for being good at all those things.

Let us add to it, then, pension planning. It just is not in their portfolio, in most cases.The pooled registered pension plan would give them the ability to allow that to go somewhere else. It would be administered by pooling together a business' employees with other businesses' employees, those of other small-business people and other entrepreneurs who might otherwise never plan a pension plan. The money would go into a great big pool and would be administered by someone else. A small-business owner would think, “Is that ever good. Somebody is going to do part of my list. I'm going to be able to hand this off to someone else”.

Let us talk a bit about what the pooled registered pension plan would do. It would do exactly what it says. It would allow businesses, certainly small businesses, entrepreneurs, single-owner businesses and single-operated businesses, to pool together.

I cannot tell members how many times during RRSP season I drive by a bank with a sign that says to buy RRSPs by such and such a date. As a small-business owner I may have even been on my way to that bank to make a deposit. However, I would get to that the next day. Procrastination on the areas where we are not really experts, as entrepreneurs, get left until the next day.

One of the previous speakers asked, if this is so great, why is there not more uptake on RRSPs and why is there not more uptake on TFSAs, the tax-free savings accounts. The reason is that they both require a small-business owner to go someplace and do something. This requires employees to automatically become registered as part of a pooled pension, and it works. It will automatically happen.

As a small-business owner, I always thought my small business was my retirement. That was part of the financial planning. At the end of the day, I hoped it was worth enough and I could sell it, and that was how I would retire. I think most entrepreneurs out there with a small number of employees, or no employees at all, think that is what their retirement is. Their saving for retirement is working hard every day, hoping their business is successful.

What the pooled registered pension plan does is make it also available for them to pool together with other small businesses and save for their retirement in a different way besides simply being the cleaner, the dentist, the hairdresser or whatever the business is. It just is out there. It is a tool in their toolbox. It makes it easy. If we can make it easy, people will do it. It makes it easy for them to pool together to get their employees to automatically register, and then there are pensions out there.

I heard one of the previous speakers talk about some 60% of people in Canada not having a pension plan. That is absolutely right. It is terrible. Here is a chance for more people, whatever their rate of pay, to pool together their assets in those pooled pension plans and allow that to pay for itself and provide a pension plan for them.

In order to increase or do anything with the Canada pension plan, it takes the provincial ministers of finance and the federal Minister of Finance to agree to do it. I am sorry, but we are not at that point. We have not yet been able to get the required number of provinces to do that. That is not on the table, but this is, and when it was launched it had unanimous consent of the ministers of finance in the provincial and federal governments to move forward to do this. It can be done.

Let me switch to some of the great comments that have been made about pooled registered pension plans on behalf of small business. I recognize that I am concentrating there because of being a former small-business owner. The new voluntary low-cost and administratively simple retirement savings mechanism would allow more employers and employees and those who are self-employed to participate in a pension plan. Who would not wish for that to happen?

Dan Kelly, from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business agrees and wants it to happen.

The Canadian Chamber of Commerce stated that this legislation:

...introduced...has the potential to benefit the estimated 60 per cent of Canadians who have either no, or insufficient, retirement savings.

That is the group we are trying to address here, those who are not part of a large industry and have a pension plan to go with it. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce believes PRPPs, pooled registered pension plans, would give many businesses the flexibility and tools they need to help their employees save for retirement, who might otherwise not do it because they missed the great big reader board at the front of the bank saying that RRSP time was here and it was time to put some money in there.

Here is one of my favourites. Minister Duncan from Ontario said that the McGuinty government supports the federal Conservatives' PRPP proposal but believes it is only one tool in helping Canadians save more.

I agree. It is only one tool. We will still have the Canada pension plan, the OAS and the rest of the things, but there is just one that would have given me a chance to save for retirement as a small-business owner, a person who got up every morning and went and worked for myself most of my life.

This is important to us. Let us get this done.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder what the size of that tool is or how big a tool it is in that toolbox that the minister across the way spoke of. There are micro screwdrivers and maybe this pooled pension Ponzi scheme that he is talking about is a micro screwdriver. I can tell the member opposite that there are a lot of small businesses in a riding like mine in a big urban centre. Not one of them would be able to access this plan or use it to build a retirement plan.

Will the member opposite agree with me that, if this is a tool, it is a darned small one at that?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to discuss what size of tool he is. I am here to discuss this bill. Business people who have not had the opportunity to save for retirement, this gives them that opportunity. This plan is available to millions of Canadians who otherwise do not have it available to them.

What will the uptake be? If everybody over there would vote for this and get it out there, we will see what the uptake on it will be.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I think a number of stakeholders will be watching once this legislation ultimately passes and we will see what sort of an uptake there is. We have expressed concerns in terms of what we believe would have made it a better bill. Unfortunately, the government did not see the merit in dealing with issues such as management fees and so forth.

Having said that, my question is more related to what I believe most Canadians are concerned about with regard to the current pension programs, the big three being the CPP, OAS and GIS. Could the member provide some comment as to how active he believes the government is on dealing with that file? I understand that it did get consensus from all the provinces on this bill, but the government has failed to get consensus on the big three pension issues with the provinces. Why?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know it is not for lack of trying on the part of the Minister of State for Finance. He went coast to coast talking to all stakeholders about pensions. Many of our own members did the same thing in prebudget consultations. We have been doing this consultation. Other than the quote I read from Minister Duncan in Ontario, I cannot speak on behalf of the ministers of the provinces as to why they thought this.

He asked what the uptake would be. I will tell him what small businesses say. They are not paying into CPP, so at the end of their working lives, they do not have it. It is not there for them because small business people invest their money back into their business. I suggest this is an opportunity for them to pool their resources with other small businesses and have great pensions at the end of the day.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I come from a background of employee benefits and pensions and throughout that time I noticed that there has been a dramatic shift as it relates to pensions, RRSPs and, frankly, there has not been the uptake. As I have gone through my riding and asked questions about the interest in it, there seems to be a lot of interest in uptake.

I struggle because I am not sure why there is such opposition to this from members opposite, but I would ask my colleague from Elgin—Middlesex—London this question. Does he think, given a chance, that small businesses like the kinds of companies he represented in his pre-political life, would take a hard look at and participate in this program?

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I said in answer to a question from a previous speaker exactly that. I spent my time this weekend wandering through my riding, going to different events, and that is what I being asked. When I told people I was going to be speaking on pooled pensions in the House, people asked me if we had not already passed it, that they were waiting for it to happen.

I thank the member for London West because his previous background was in the type of business that may be the types of groups of people that would administer this, other small businesses helping with pooled pensions so that small business people and entrepreneurs can save for retirement without really having to leave their businesses and be there to serve their customers.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Before I call on the hon. member for Chambly—Borduas, I must inform him that I will have to interrupt him at 6:30 p.m., at the conclusion of today's government business.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your kind warning.

My speech will be very similar to that of the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard. The simple reason is that the public consultations that she carried out in Quebec with the hon. member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin were also held in my riding. Many of the comments that she heard about the problems facing our seniors or those retiring soon are the same comments that I have heard. And when we think about it, this affects everyone.

I would like to use the short time that I have to talk about that and to explain why we think the measures proposed in Bill C-25 are not appropriate.

That is basically it. We are not saying that this bill is a travesty. We simply want to provide people who are going to retire or who already have retired with better tools.

What this bill is proposing is very similar to what we already have, such as RRSPs. What is more, we have been given very little information. We do not know the administrative costs associated with this plan. The employer is not required to contribute to the plan, something that is done in many other countries. The pension plans of the largest corporations require the employer to make a certain contribution. There are many problems with all this.

The NDP believes that these measures are not appropriate at this time, especially when the eligibility age for old age security is being increased from 65 to 67.

We saw with RRSPs what can happen when people are asked to invest their pensions in the stock market. That is what happened in 2008.

Many Canadians were rather fortunate compared to Americans. Nonetheless, people have been seriously affected. At the very least, we cannot downplay the importance of all this. People invested in RRSPs for 10 years and saw their investments dwindle. When it comes to retirement security, that is not the norm in a country such as ours. Members will recall the case of Nortel, where there were no provisions in place to guarantee people's pensions.

In the last minute I have left, I would like to say that in talking to people, their main complaint was that they were tired of investing in the market and not having retirement security. They said that they want to have the support of a system in which they can invest, such as old age security and the guaranteed income supplement.

The guaranteed income supplement is a very important tool. We in the NDP would like to increase the GIS. With a very small investment, we could lift most seniors living below the poverty line above that line and enable them to live in dignity. That is what the people in my riding and many other ridings told us.

We oppose this bill because it is not the right tool in the current economic situation. There are much better tools. That is what the NDP would do if it formed the government.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The hon. member for Chambly—Borduas will have six minutes to finish his speech and another five minutes for questions and comments when the House resumes debate on the motion.

The House resumed 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 third time and passed, and of the motion that this question be now put.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made earlier today, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question at the third reading stage of Bill C-25.

Call in the members.

Before the Clerk announced the results of the vote:

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The hon. Chief Government Whip is rising on a point of order.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like you to confirm that the member for Beauce was included in the vote. He was, okay.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #281

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

The next question is on the motion. The hon. Chief Government Whip is rising.

[Gordon O'Connor, Conservative, Carleton—Mississippi Mills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it I believe you will find agreement to apply the result of the previous vote to the current vote, with the Conservatives voting yes.

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this fashion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Nycole Turmel, NDP, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree to apply the vote. The NDP will be voting against the motion. I would like to add the name of the hon. member for Victoria, who has arrived.

[Massimo Pacetti, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the members of the Liberal Party will be voting in favour of the motion.

[Louis Plamondon, Bloc, Bas-Richelieu—Nicolet—Bécancour, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will be voting in favour of the motion.

[Bruce Hyer, Independent, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thunder Bay—Superior North will be voting no.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

The Green Party votes no.

[Peter Goldring, Independent, Edmonton East, AB]

I will be voting yes.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #282

[The Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)