Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Fitzpatrick, you were arguing that there needs to be an equal playing field for both new hires and current employees. As you were talking, you were suggesting that the public service pension plan be extended for new hires as well. But the alternative, if it has to be absolutely fair, is that we just not do this three-year extension in the first place.
Now, if fairness is the underlying issue, that's another option. If the concern is that the next pension plan will have less than the current one, it would be hurting current employees relative to the future. Do you understand where I'm going with what I'm saying there?
So let me then pose this question: Is the underlying issue a concern about compensation going down in the form of a weaker pension plan or is it fundamentally about fairness? If we had a situation in which a new pension plan was better than the old one, I suspect current employees would want the right to transition over to it as soon as possible. Would that not be correct?
So isn't the fundamental question based on nervousness about the level of compensation rather than on the issue of fairness?