Good afternoon.
Indeed, women are highly dependent on public plans; you heard the statistics. One of the reasons for that is that they do not have access to defined benefit plans or good plans where they work. Because of the structure of industry, the major pension plans are sponsored mainly by large companies. Even though women have access to public programs, problems persists.
The Canadian system, as it now stands, is built on three pillars: the Guaranteed Income Supplement for the poorest, the Canada Pension Plan—which is a more universal pension plan—and supplemental pension plans. It is not a bad system. It is actually quite an effective system. However, we are now seeing—and this will soon be the case for men—that the private plan pillar is at risk because it was not adapted to meet specific needs. Women do not have access to this type of plan.
At the present time, we are seeing a lot of these plans collapse because they no longer meet needs. Even if people can still access the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan, the third pillar needs to be reviewed and updated, in any case, to be certain that it is appropriate. The fact is that, unless we consider introducing a plan such as the one that exists in France—a universal plan providing extremely costly universal coverage—we will have no choice but to address the issues around the third pillar in order to enhance retirement protection. This time around, women must have access to that system.