Thank you.
We've been asked about the issue of mandatory and voluntary quite a bit, and I'm not sure why it is that people are so frightened of the idea of it being mandatory. In fact, mandatory works.
Obviously, our model focuses on a big-picture framework that says that if you want to get to your target quickly, and you can guarantee that everybody participates, mandatory works.
I understand that people are pedalling backwards furiously from that, because they feel that somehow this would be one more imposition from government that people just don't like to hear about. I understand that. But the reality is that every defined benefit plan we currently have is in fact mandatory. Your own pensions are mandatory. We now have mandatory seat belt laws. We now have mandatory no smoking laws and bike helmet laws, and I can go on and on.
The reality is that people will always reject any kind of state nannyism. But if it's for their own good, I suppose you have to gather the political gumption and say, well, this is for the public good over the longer term.
If you want to do it without making it mandatory, there are ways. You can make it mandatory with one opt-out and hope for inertia. In fact, that proves my point. People have the inertia of not doing things for themselves voluntarily. So if you reverse it, and make it a negative option, that works better in the long run, and later they thank you for it. Fine. If that's the way you want to make the political choices, that's all right. But our recommendation is focused on getting universal access, affordable access, and the kinds of economies of scale and investment fees and so on that come with a larger plan. To be clear, we're not necessarily basing this on simply an expansion of the CPP; we are using the CPP as a good model to frame our thinking.