Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the speech given by the hon. member. I enjoyed it very much, although for a while I wondered if he was talking about buzzwords and Newfie jokes more than the problem at hand.
However, he did mention at one stage rationalization being a bad word that meant terrible things. He gave me credit for bringing in the term improvement.
Companies that have had to go through a rationalization program have ended up with a better structure, more efficiency and a profitable situation from perhaps one that would have meant disaster before.
He also mentioned the term reality. I wanted to bring some reality to the discussion here and ask him a specific question. A person who retired on CPP in the early 1980s will collect almost five times what they contributed to CPP in their lifetime.
However, a 20-year-old today contributing to CPP will end up collecting less than three-quarters of what that person contributed. A similar problem exists with UI when a person
using the system can collect up to 17 times as much as they pay into the system.
Does the hon. member agree that the CPP and UI systems should be modernized or rationalized so that they are much more like true insurance rather than a system of transferring benefits from one person to another?