Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm glad that Mr. Lawton mentioned that.... At the end, of course, I wasn't exactly sure who had moved this subamendment. I'm glad to know, so that I can thank him for moving what I think is fairly reasonable in a long list of reasonable subamendments to a very reasonable amendment that we have put forward here over the last short while, in terms of the discussion regarding Bill C-30.
Now, I am really struggling, after hearing just the tail end of Mr. Lawton's speech, to understand what the Liberal opposition to this subamendment may in fact be. It reads as pretty common sense to me. We simply want the inclusion of other pension plans that exist across the globe in like-minded countries.
I don't know why it would be a bad thing for Canadians to have that included in this regular reporting scheme that we're seeking to establish here under CPC-13 in terms of the reporting requirements that we would put forward for the Minister of Finance to prepare.
Including the comparative jurisdictions of the United States, Australia and Sweden makes sense to us and to most Canadians. We often compare ourselves to these countries in many other ways, whether it's our sports, our demographics, our health systems—you name it. These are countries that we often compare ourselves to. I think it's fair that we do that with our pension system as well.
In terms of advancing funding levels, advanced funding and reliance on investment income—you pick the topic in terms of how pension funds are set up and how they're invested, operated and managed by federal governments across the western world, if you will—that's something that is important for Canadians to see.
It comes back to the principle in this discussion we've been having for most of the day about language that's accessible to Canadians. Most Canadians aren't actuaries. They're not pension fund managers. They just want it to be there when they need it. Ensuring that it is, as well as the demographic information we were talking about when I last intervened at this committee.... It's important for Canadians to see how that's managed and what the comparatives are across like-minded nations.
We could be doing better. We could be doing much worse, but we could be doing better. If that analysis isn't provided in a language that's easily consumable to Canadians across this great country. Whether it's reliance on investment income.... You can pick the topic, but it is important that some of this language be included in the subamendment.