So I hesitate to say that the.... While our banks may be the strongest in the world, they have had their problems too, particularly over the last couple of years.
On Mr. Rota's comments about pensions being deferred wages and him agreeing that they are, in fact that is very true. I agree with Mr. Rota on that. In fact I would go one step further and suggest that all the other agreements that companies make with employees should be legally binding agreements. They are commitments that companies have made, and they should be treated fairly and in the proper order, instead of being somewhere down...and unsecured and being able to get out of those commitments.
For many years Canadian companies have had an opportunity to use the system the way it is, to use money that is not rightfully theirs, in some cases, to increase their bottom line or pay out shareholders or to do all sorts of different things. I guess this bill is an attempt to put an end to that.
We've heard from a number of organizations here over the last few weeks, and there are ones I've met privately with, for example the Canadian Bankers Association and others, and they're very clear that they will work within whatever legislation there is. For them it's a question of risk. That's really the bottom line. How much risk do they have? And will this bill increase their risk? Will it decrease their risk? That's really what they're concerned about.
I would suggest that one of the things this bill will do over the next number of years is make sure that investors invest in companies for the right reasons. In other words, they'll be investing in companies because they have great owners, because they have a wonderful product, great marketing plans, a great future, and 10 years down the road they're going to be making lots of money.
That's why people will start investing in companies--instead of investing in companies by looking at how much money they can borrow and use within that company within the law, which is very wrong.
Now there are people, here in this committee and other MPs, who think, I guess, one of three things about this bill. There's one group that just opposes the bill as it stands.
There's another group that opposes strengthening the bill. When I say strengthening the bill, I'm talking about the amendments that I put forward that clear up some language and close a loophole about unfunded liabilities and so on, of which you're well aware.
Then there are people who oppose weakening the bill. Weakening the bill would be, I guess, instead of talking about secured pensions and other liabilities, talking about preferred, which they would see as a weakening, and they're not happy about it.
So we have these three groups of people. The political reality, and I want to be very clear about this, is that a lot of people will be thinking, particularly in the opposition—I mean opposed to the NDP, not the opposition in the House—that it's an NDP bill, and that's a problem for them.
I mean, there are lots of reasons why people are opposing this bill.
I do have a question.