Finance Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Great argument. We're convinced. We'll vote in favour now.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Excellent. I'll take you at your word.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The parliamentary secretary did say he would support this, so that's positive.

I just want to respond to a few things that he put on the record. He said that somehow the comments Mr. Lake made about inflation had nothing to do with the subamendment. In fact, it's actually spelled out in the subamendment that we're asking for inflation-adjusted dollars and that the report must include, to the extent the information is available, the impacts of inflation on real assets, projected assets, per contributor and per beneficiary.

For the parliamentary secretary to maintain the opinion that inflation has no impact on that.... I don't think the subamendment would have been allowed if it was out of the scope, for starters. Secondly, I think it's a pretty shocking admission that the parliamentary secretary believes that inflation won't have any impact on the buying power of people's CPP in the future. I'd just like to outline for him a few reasons why that is the case, which is why we've included this provision in the subamendment.

Inflation very clearly erodes purchasing power if benefits are not indexed, but indexation increases sustainability pressure. For contributors, wage growth versus inflation matters. If wages keep up with inflation, contribution revenues rise in nominal terms. If they don't, like the government is doing, that can present challenges. If wage growth lags, contributions lose real value. That's a clear fact that everybody—maybe not everybody now that the parliamentary secretary has mentioned this—or most people understand. That's the impact of inflation on pensionable funds.

That's why we've asked for this subamendment. It's to make it clear to Manitobans—and all Canadians in fact—the impacts that this will have, including government actions on inflationary spending policies. That is exactly what Mr. Lake was trying to get to, but he was unfortunately interrupted many times. Perhaps the members opposite would have gotten a clearer picture if they had allowed him to speak right through and make his argument in one connected presentation. Alas, here we are.

The bottom line for the parliamentary secretary and others is that inflation is one of the most important risks in pension financing. That's very clear, sound fiscal policy that everybody knows. It is not out of order and it's certainly not off topic to include that in a subamendment to an amendment to a bill that's about future fiscal planning regarding the Canada pension plan.

The members opposite still haven't had enough, so they clearly don't understand that it directly affects the real value of benefits, the size of liabilities and the effectiveness of investment strategies. I think that's very clear. All we're asking for is that projections outlining all those factors be included in the bill when it gets enacted so that those provisions are included for Canadians to understand. That's why the subamendment is on the floor. We look forward to them supporting it when we get to the vote in due course.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Jackson.

Mr. Kelly is next.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I too had comments that stem from some of the exchanges that occurred during Mr. Lake's argument, which I thought he was making quite clearly by drawing a line over the historical experience of deficits and out-of-control government spending on inflation, which erodes the purchasing power of Canadians' savings and their retirement incomes.

The point is that a report that gives only nominal figures and does not adjust for inflation does not give Canadians the information they need. People might say, “Well, how important is that? Is that really something we have lived experience with in Canada?” The answer to that is yes.

That was Mr. Lake's point. Up until today, probably the two most irresponsible finance ministers in Canadian history—Allan MacEachen and Marc Lalonde—left Parliament basically kiting interest and issuing new debt to pay the interest on existing debt. In a household, if somebody is taking out a new credit card just to make the interest payment on the old credit card, we know what kind of disaster that leads to. That was the situation in 1984 in Canada. That erodes and changes the future value of assets.

That's why it's so important that we express these numbers in purchasing power terms so that Canadians can understand them. In so many ways, as Mr. Lake was saying, we are repeating the history we went through 40 years ago, wherein a prime minister named Trudeau made such a mess and was so utterly incompetent in his energy policy—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Kelly, please stick to the subamendment.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

This is happening again, and this is why the subamendment—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Yes, but—

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

That's why we moved this subamendment. It's so that Canadians will see things in inflation-adjusted terms. As history repeats itself under the government and it copies the policies of that government, we could very well find ourselves in a situation where.... Imagine a person in the 1980s who was looking at their future retirement benefits and understood them only in nominal terms and did not foresee what inflation might do to these nominal terms and how that affected their ability to plan their own retirement. I followed that argument. On the other side, they didn't seem to think it was relevant. They refused. They weren't interested in learning from history. We become doomed to repeat it when we don't learn from it.

Sadly, that's unfolding in so many ways in our political discourse today. We're here to try to make better laws, improve bills and improve legislation. It's our job as legislators, and that's what we're doing. We're trying to add both nominal and inflation-adjusted dollars to the reporting we will have.

I thought it was a valid argument made by Mr. Lake. That's why I'm stating it. I think I've kept it to the limitations of this particular amendment, which deals with ensuring Canadians have inflation-adjusted information so they can understand what they have ahead of themselves. The reason—

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

I have Mr. Sawatzky on a point of order.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Once again, we're seeing a lot of repetition and irrelevant information. We're at 10 hours now. We've been on one clause for the whole time. I'm a little surprised that we haven't been able to move past one clause in 10 hours.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Is this a point of order?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky.

Mr. Kelly, if you can, stick to the amendment, please.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

I believe I was, but I'll defer to you and ensure that I'm as tight to the amendment as possible so that Mr. Sawatzky and others can follow the debate.

I hope Mr. Sawatzky isn't trying to direct from the other side what members think is important to debate and how much time members—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly. Please stick to the subamendment. We are in clause-by-clause.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

Yes, indeed we are. I've forcefully made the argument about the relevance of historical experience to this amendment.

With that, I am prepared to cede my time. Since members on the other side have had so much to say without having the floor, perhaps one of them would like to take the floor and give us their remarks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

I have missed you all. I wanted to take the time to tell you that first. I'm always happy to take the floor back and see that we can pick up where we left off, once more.

I just have a question for my Conservative colleagues.

You'll be surprised, but this is a real question in this whole debate.

Each of their subamendments seeks to produce a new report, the goal of which is to have concise, simple and digestible information for Canadians. I think I understand that well.

They have been listing the information they want in these reports for 10 hours now. I would like to know how, technically, 10 hours' worth of information can fit into a simple and concise report. I even wonder if the amendments are admissible, because they don't seem to fulfill the goal they were drafted to fulfill.

Canadians are tired of waiting to read the actuarial reports for the Canada pension plan. However, it's a bit too complicated for their subway commute, so we'll make it simpler.

The Conservatives are spending 10 hours to tell us what's needed in the simple report. What's the point of their subamendments?

It's an open-ended question, and I know there are a number of speakers on the list. It might be nice for them to answer a question for which the answer wasn't written in advance. It might liven up their day a bit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Monsieur Garon.

Mr. Lake is on the list.

Please go ahead.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you.

It's nice to see my friend Monsieur Garon here at committee. I'm dropping in as a guest. We've served on a committee together in the past, and I found him to be a very good colleague to work with on issues that were important. I think it was the health committee we were on together at the time.

Mr. Sawatzky referred to concerns about interest and inflation as “irrelevant”. I found that to be an interesting comment. Of course, he wasn't in the House in the early—

[An hon. member]

I have a point of order.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB]

I'm sorry. Is there a point of order? Is he going to correct the record? Is that what he's saying?

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Mr. Lake, please continue.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Leduc—Wetaskiwin, AB]

No, someone has called a point of order.