Thank you, Madam Chair.
It is hard to follow, with so many government heckles distracting me. I appreciate your guidance, Madam Chair, very much. I do want to put a few more words.... I'm telling you. It's very distracting.
I think it's important to put a few more words on the record, regarding CPC-13 and the additional reporting requirements it would put on the government, and particularly regarding a couple of other areas of concern that we had intended to address with our amendment, but we didn't get them into the language as tightly as we had hoped within the reporting requirements.
One of the biggest public concerns moving forward—not just about pensions specifically, but certainly pensions and the CPP are encompassed within it—is intergenerational fairness. I mentioned earlier that, when I go to their doors, Canadians ask me about the CPP. They're not just seniors but also younger people, often. They see this money they're contributing to the CPP, and they wonder and are concerned about the health of the fund, given the status and the demographics of our population—it's kind of an upside-down pyramid. They wonder if there's going to be anything left for them by the time they get to retirement age, as opposed to the sandwich generation, who are supporting both the youth and the seniors in this country at the moment. They also wonder if the CPP is designed appropriately to ensure that the funds they're contributing will still be there when they get to retirement age.
In reporting on the health of the plan, it should be incumbent on government, following along the lines of plain language, to talk specifically about what the estimated provisions are going to be for generation after generation. We believe that the report could and should provide estimates for current retirees, near retirees, generation X, millennials and generation Z.
The deputy government House leader often criticizes me at PROC for how I pronounce the letter Z. I don't know why. Anyway, that's a digression.
It is important that people can see themselves in the reporting that's being done on the health of the plan, based on their age demographic. Examples of this could be expected lifetime contributions and expected lifetime benefits after retirement, the internal rate of return by birth cohort or the impact of the 2027 contribution rate reduction on each cohort by generational gap, if that's what the government chooses to do. They could find some other way to group ages, if they chose to.
These would be a couple of important provisions for people to understand—based on where they are in the “work until you get to retirement age” cycle—regarding the health of the plan, what the impacts for them are going to be and what the benefits will be when they get to retirement age.
Without that information, we're concerned about and, perhaps, not convinced of the accessibility or the consumability of the information. We feel that readers cannot easily judge who would gain the most from lower contributions by age demographic and who bears the brunt of the long-term trade-off versus the benefits.
Requiring these things to be included in our amendment—which subsequently, I hope, will pass and become part of the bill—means that the government would have to report on them to Parliament. The information would be accessible to Canadians, and we could then use it as we're discussing this issue with constituents, while door knocking across the country. It's about ensuring that Canadians have confidence in the CPP, as one of the many long-standing foundational pieces of our social security net in this country.
With growing public distrust, we have disinformation, deepfakes and all kinds of stuff on social media that could certainly call into question these types of long-standing government programs if the information isn't readily accessible and consumable. I think this subamendment would bring some clarity in some very consumable language.
I am going to move a subamendment. I know that my colleagues will have some words to put on the record about that as well. The subamendment is what I believe, Madam Chair, you've counted as number four. I move that the amendment be amended by adding after proposed subsection 43.1(1) the following:
(1.1) The report prepared under subsection (1) and the report prepared under subsection (3) must include, to the extent that the information is available, an assessment of the impact of the amendments to the Canada Pension Plan contained in this Division on current retirees, near-retirees, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z, including estimated lifetime contributions, estimated lifetime benefits and the impact of the reduction in contribution rates beginning in 2027.
That is the end of the subamendment.