The larger the pension plan, the more spread out the risk.
I'm not an actuary. I want to say that very clearly: I am not an actuary. I am absolutely not a pensions expert. But I understand the concept that risk is diluted with more people in the pool.
We certainly support a defined benefit pension plan. Our staff has one, and we believe that sharing the cost of a defined benefit pension plan is fair and reasonable. As you can see again from the statistics and the information provided to you, federal public sector workers contribute 9.6%, I believe, of their pay on average to their pension plans. That is both in the form of the Canada Pension Plan or the Quebec Pension Plan and their benefits under the public service superannuation plan. It has been a successful plan, a beneficial plan, because it is such a large plan.
I think it would be really wonderful for people if they could participate in a very large plan and that people would have portability so that they could come from the private sector into the public sector, and on.
With respect to your question about private sector plans, I guess it's a question about whether a plan is better or not. I've never been a member of a private sector plan. I've been a public service worker since I was a kid. I suppose if I were making a lot of money in the private sector and getting paid a really large salary, there might be a correlating benefit to a bigger pension plan, but again I'm mindful of the fact that many private plans are not fully funded and aren't as stable financially in the long term.
So from where I sit, big defined benefit plans that distill the risk, that spread the risk out, definitely serve our members well. That serves the public well, and in the long term benefits the economy and society, because we don't have women in particular—since we're focused on women here, given that they have unreduced pension benefits—living at high levels of poverty.