Thanks very much, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Sproule, for your attendance today.
I can't imagine anything that would be more terrifying to someone, especially as they get to their late forties and into their fifties, to find out that the pension they were counting on is gone, jeopardized, slashed. The thing about pensions is that it's one of the areas where once you reach a certain age, you can't go back and fix it. You can't go back and start working somewhere else and develop a new 30 years of seniority. Once you reach 55, 56, and are getting close to 60, it's over, and either the money is there and you're going to live a dignified retirement or you're on the borderline of poverty, and it's terrifying. I have an awful lot of constituents who are living in that world right now and I don't have an answer for them.
I want to compliment you on behalf of the people you represent. Though it's not going to change their world that you're here, it's going to make them feel good that you're taking every opportunity you possibly can to bring this issue before the public and to keep reminding people and keep reminding parliamentarians that this issue is there. To that degree, I compliment you for doing this for your colleagues. You found a hook in there, one little piece of this, so be it. This issue is big enough, and I compliment you for your leadership in making sure that you're out there every chance you get —and this is one of those chances.
You were here earlier and heard Mr. Topp talking about penalties as one of the things we're looking at, or disincentives. There are so many different ways to go that we've made no decisions yet, but what are your thoughts about those? They wouldn't have changed the world, but would they have helped? Having felt that you got “screwed”, to use layperson's language, by your own parliament, or at least by the government of the day, would it have helped at all if there were some penalties to be paid? Or was the damage done, and you really don't care?