Yes, as a matter of fact one has to withdraw their contribution if one has not reached the amount required to obtain a benefit. The member is completely wrong.
I was forced to withdraw my contributions to the plan without interest, or I think I received 2 per cent. That was in 1981 when the interest rate was something like 18 per cent but I received 2 per cent on the money I had invested. I put that in a registered retirement account.
I debated with Mr. Somerville and said: "Mr. Somerville, I will make a deal with you. If you think my MP pension plan is so great, you can run against me in my riding and if you think your plan is so great maybe the people will vote for you. Alternatively, I challenge you to do the following. Let us calculate it and see, Mr. Somerville, if a registered retirement savings plan given to MPs"-which is what he was advocating at the time with employer-employee contributions-"would be richer or poorer than what we have now". I challenged him. I said: "Do it for me. If your plan ends up being better than what I would get out of a retirement plan of the kind we now have for MPs, I will resign". It was the opposite. In fact I could easily demonstrate that in my case I lost quite a bit.