Finance Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

That's fair.

There's been a lot of talk about the health of the Canada pension plan more recently, given the political climate that we're living in. I think Canadians deserve to have confidence in the plan and how it's being managed. I think transparency in decisions about contribution rates or any other change as to how the plan is made up is important, so I was curious as to your opinion and whether you think the existing reporting requirements are sufficient.

[Galen Countryman]

The reporting requirements every three years have indicated so far, to date, that the CPP is sustainable for 75 years—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Jackson, we've gone over this in terms of repetitiveness.

[Grant Jackson, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Sure. It's no problem.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Lawton.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It's always good to be here on the finance committee.

These are very important issues. I think that as a committee, we have to be getting them right. We have an obligation here as representatives of taxpayers and as stewards of taxpayer money. I know there's been a lot circulating online, certainly in recent months, about the CPP, so it's incredibly timely that we're dealing with some of this.

I want to go back to the essence of CPC-13. What we're trying to do in the bill, through Mr. Hallan's amendment, is to add after line 18 on page 22, for starters, this reporting requirement:

Within three months after the day on which this section comes into force, the Minister of Finance must prepare a report on the projected impact of the amendments to the Canada Pension Plan contained in this Division on the financial state of the Canada Pension Plan and on contribution rates.

Mr. Countryman, do you view that as being a particularly burdensome requirement on the minister?

[Galen Countryman]

The legislation already has a report to the minister from the chief actuary every three years.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Basically, that's a no. It's not that additional. We already review reporting—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

Maybe you could remind Mr. Lawton that he's speaking to a devoted member of our public service who doesn't set legislative requirements but follows them. It's up to us to decide how we feel about these things. It's not up to Mr. Countryman.

I'm sure you're putting him in quite a difficult position by asking him to answer questions about how he does or doesn't feel about statutory requirements that members of Parliament put into legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Mr. Lawton, could you keep your questions technical, please?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Sure.

If you ever feel that you're uncomfortable, just let me know. I have confidence in how you are answering that and I appreciate your being here, especially at this late hour.

In the amendment, we also look at the following requirement:

That the Minister of Finance must cause the report to be tabled in each House of Parliament on any of the first 15 days on which that House is sitting after the report is completed.

I think this is also a critical part of the amendment:

Five years after the day on which the report is tabled under subsection (2)—

That was obviously the subsection dealing with the report being tabled in the Houses of Parliament. It continues:

—the Minister of Finance must prepare a report on the impact of the amendments to the Canada Pension Plan contained in this Division on the financial state of the Canada Pension Plan and on contribution rates.

We are in the midst of an affordability crisis right now. We, as members of Parliament in all parties, are very aware that the only hope of many of the people we represent of having any income to rely on in retirement—if they even get to retire—is either through old age security and the guaranteed income supplement or the Canada pension plan.

I know there has been some information circulating online, as I was alluding to earlier, about people being concerned about how CPP money is invested. I think it's important that people know about the CPP Investment Board and the work it does and how it goes about these decisions. Transparency should certainly never be something that we shy away from, so I don't quite understand where the objections to this would be.

To keep in mind Mr. Turnbull's comments and restrict this to more technical things, as you envision this amendment, what would be the key aspects of these reports? What would be the information that would be put before us in this reporting?

[Galen Countryman]

On this, I would turn to the examples that we already have, the chief actuary's reports, which are tabled every three years.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I'm sorry, but could you repeat that?

I don't know if it was the audio. I'll put in my earpiece. I couldn't hear you clearly.

Could you just repeat that, please?

[Galen Countryman]

I beg your pardon. We would look at the chief actuary's reports, which are tabled every three years.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Okay.

As we look at the scope of this amendment, the reason it was put forward on our part is that we are trying to ensure there's lower payroll pressure. We want to protect retirement security. We also have to, in general, understand the burdens on small businesses.

Looking beyond the reporting requirement about what is actually in these reports, we know that payroll obligations on employers are incredibly cumbersome. Our whole approach in anything we're trying to do when it comes to how Canadians' money should be spent needs to be about protecting and preserving the value of taxpayer dollars and having powerful paycheques. This is something that should be front and centre in all discussions we have on this committee.

We also need to look at the sustainability of it. Again, we have seen pension boards.... I've looked at university endowments, for example. In recent years, we've seen pension investment funds being very subjected to pressure campaigns by certain groups that say you can't invest in these types of companies, not because they're not sound investments but because they believe they run against whatever the political cause du jour is. We've seen universities targeted on the environmental front, and interestingly, the Prime Minister used to be very aggressive in pursuing net-zero investments until that fell out of vogue because companies were not making the money they needed from it.

We don't want to see a situation in which Canadians' hard-earned money, the money they are going to need when they retire—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair. I'm sorry to interrupt Mr. Lawton. I know he's new to this committee, but he's making arguments that are irrelevant to the proposed amendment to the Canada pension plan contributions.

We've lowered the Canada pension plan contributions by 40 basis points. This is not about how pension plans invest pensioners' money. This is about lowering....

As you say with your slogans, it's about “powerful paycheques”. It's exactly that. Are you opposed to that? It sounds like you're actually supportive of what we've done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Mr. Lawton, I would ask that you stick to the topic of the amendment, please.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that, Madam Chair.

I certainly don't believe that wanting Canadians to have more of their own money is a slogan, but if that's the way the vice-chair views it, that's worth noting.

I think it is relevant because, in this reporting requirement, we have to acknowledge what is in the report, why these things are valuable and why it is important. In this case, when we look at new subclause 43.1(2), in particular,

in French, it says:Il fait déposer le rapport devant chaque chambre du Parlement dans les quinze premiers jours de séance de celle-ci suivant son achèvement.

That is important because we want to make sure that Parliament is able to have the necessary authority. Canadians rely on us to do this. Canadians don't want a situation in which they do not have all the information they need about how their pension funds are being invested and what the rates are. That's why this is incredibly germane to new subclause 43.1(3), which says, “the Minister of Finance must prepare a report on the impact of the amendments to the Canada Pension Plan” and “on the financial state of the Canada Pension Plan and on contribution rates.”

We can't talk about the information contained in the reporting requirements—information highly relevant to the financial state—without talking about why those concerns are valid to Canadians.

Also, there's the fact that the Minister of Finance must cause the report to be tabled “on any of the first 15 days on which that House is sitting after the report is completed.”

I'm having trouble understanding why there seems to be this push-back to what is really transparency. Even Mr. Countryman has been very candid in his comments here. We already have in the laws, in the systems we have in place here, requirements on reporting. We should be looking for more information as much as possible. This seems to be pretty straightforward here.

We also are looking—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Lawton, I would note that you weren't here before, but we've had this conversation with a number of your colleagues. You are not supposed to be repetitive. Can you get to the point, please?

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Okay. I'll move to the second part of my argument, then, Madam Chair. Thank you.

It is that as we talk about how this weaves into.... Again, the problem is that we're talking about a package here. I know we can't use props, but we're talking about a package of dozens of amendments here. These amendments are all part of a suite of measures that certainly, as far as the Conservative amendments are concerned, are trying to deal with pretty significant issues. In clause-by-clause, we obviously have to debate and discuss these things on an individual level, but we also have to look at the broader suite—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order.

It's just on relevance, because the member opposite is referring to a package of other measures. We will duly consider all of those in due time if we actually get to some of those other amendments tonight.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

I hope we do.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Madam Chair, the other amendments are not relevant to the consideration of this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

That is correct. Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Mr. Lawton, I would ask you to please focus on CPC-13. Keep your comments focused on the amendment at hand.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

That is a fantastic point from Mr. Turnbull, and I'm glad he raised it. I'll take a brief pause and address that because it is relevant here.

Obviously, I won't divulge privilege by talking about other amendments to come, but CPC-13 is coming from the same place as other issues that have been raised about this bill, issues that have been raised before this committee about the importance of accurate, effective and consistent reporting, specifically the need for a later five-year report. We don't want to end up in a situation where this has passed and, in five years when we will have a Conservative government, we don't have the ability to address some of these core issues. That's what the Liberals have been trying to do here.

It's important because if Canadians don't have confidence in their pension system, as in other institutions, it is incredibly difficult for us as a country and for us as parliamentarians to provide the level of transparency that we need to provide.

To bring it back to where I think all of us should be on the same side, and I don't know why this has been a sticking point for Mr. Turnbull and some of his colleagues—