Thank you.
I'm the raving socialist who proposed the preferred status bill, so I thought I'd get that on the table right away.
I'd like to ask a question, and feel free not to answer. Is there anybody among our panellists here today who earns less than $50,000 a year?
The reason I ask that is we're here for retirement income security. A quarter of a million Canadians today are living below the poverty line. I went to 24 communities--and Ted Menzies has heard a lot of these stories as well--where women are eating cat food to get protein. I don't mean to denigrate anybody here, and I greatly respect the people at this table for the expertise you bring, but I want to put those things in context.
Ms. Di Vito, I agree with you on a couple of points. People purchase their homes to live in. If it were the way Mr. Lee has described, I would have a lot less heartache in my office, because I have people coming in asking how they can keep their homes, and they really want to do that.
One important point that you raised was the deferred income concept. The pensions people pay into are their wages they're putting aside. The discussion has got to the point where somehow that's a company asset. Well, damn, that's their money.
Sorry, I shouldn't get too carried away.
Ms. Swift, it will surprise you, but I agree with you too that the backbone of this country is small and medium-sized business. I don't quibble with you on that. But when we talk about the CPP, one point you did make was that the premiums would double. With the proposal that's come from our party--and I don't know which one you've been looking at--the premiums today are at 4% or 5% for employer plus employee, and we're talking about adding 2.5% to each one of those, which is 14%, just to try to put it where it is.
This is one of those days when I've made a lot of notes because I am really interested in the information you're bringing to us.
Ms. Puffer talked about not having a study that could look at what would happen with preferred status. Are you aware that this week the Australian government released a report that said the impact on investment costs there is negligible? It was released Tuesday of this week, so it might be one worth taking a look at. When we started looking at this ourselves, we found there was very little research in areas like this we could turn to. That's why we value the input you're giving us here today.
Now back to Ms. Swift. Robert Brown, a former head of Price Waterhouse, came out recently in favour of an expansion of CPP. He was talking about a 35% increase. Obviously that wouldn't suit me, but I'm trying to find real-world solutions to this, as I think everybody is. We have the public system. We have the private system. We have some investment people are able to do. As I say, 63% of Canadians can't put aside for pension. So going back to the public side, to build a floor where people will have a chance at dignity, those perhaps even from the business community who can't get beyond that, how far would you be willing to go in expansion of the CPP?