Yes, it is past practice. It used to prevail not just in the public sector but in the private sector as well.
Any of you who have in your legislative lives or elsewhere dealt with any of the pension-related issues will know that as a result of some very high-profile bankruptcies, both in Canada and elsewhere, the pension regulators began to take a dim view of this use of high discount rates. I referenced earlier the convenience of high discount rates on both sides of the table, if you like, management and labour. In the short run it's attractive. It makes the plan look well funded. Management, if you're in the private sector, can pay higher dividends or higher current compensation. The workers can take higher current compensation. If you're a government, it makes the bottom line look better. But that's an artifact of choosing a high discount rate.
If the discount rate were lowered more to what I think is appropriate, from the point of view of both the value of the promise to the employee and also what the taxpayer faces—what we would have to do as individuals in order to have that same kind of income—it does show that the value of these promises is greater than what we've been saying.