I would say that horse left the barn three decades ago. Most new pension plans are defined contribution arrangements or a group RRSP. The problem is that you have hundreds of thousands of people, if not a million people, in private sector defined benefit plans in this country. This is the regime that we have.
I'm not worried about new plans. I'm worried about protecting the people in the current plans. I'm worried about the fearmongering, frankly, that says all lending will dry up, that everything will dry up if you create some kind of priority.
We created a superpriority for wages, a small one, 15 years ago. Guess what? They are still lending.
Lenders know how to study actuarial reports. They know how to study all aspects of a business that are problematic and depend on future sales, future developments, future interest rates or future mortality, which is what pensions are about. They are sophisticated. They can protect themselves. Other suppliers can protect themselves because they can spread their losses. Even workers can protect themselves to a degree: They can get another job.
Pensioners can't do anything. If their pensions get cut, there's finality. So you have do something here. At least put a cap on this priority and really study the solution that even Mr. Docherty recommended. Create a viable guarantee fund. That's how you protect pensioners.
To do nothing, just because this bill creates a superpriority over everyone, is to ignore the problem and to let down the pensioners of this country.