But eight years could still be substantial in a defined benefit plan. In the military, for instance, it would be equal to around 8% of someone's salary.
I'm a little concerned that we haven't looked at calculating that. I understand there's a child-rearing provision and a general drop-out provision, but I believe if someone and their employer were willing to contribute to the CPP during a certain period when they could show what their salary would be over a certain time, they should still have that ability to contribute to the CPP to ensure they don't lose that long-term buying power.
Obviously the contributions are very important, and I understand we want to have no longer a pay-as-you-go CPP plan but something that's...and we don't want to transfer wealth from one generation to another. At any rate, I hope somehow someone would be interested in looking at that in greater detail, both the actuary and the finance department.
I was wondering if you could give me the additional costs in the form of increased Government of Canada payments to cover the employer portion of the CPP enhancement in relation to federal employees. Around 250,000 public servants are in the employ of the federal government, and I'd like to know how much extra the enhancement is going to cost the federal government. I'd asked this previously and no one got back to me, so I'm asking again.