Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. friend for the question.
What I am hearing across the floor is funny. It is always the same rhetoric for the haves. Let us remember the Canadians who were not able to accumulate savings, the Canadians who were not able to take care of themselves. This gives them that opportunity. I fear to ask him what would happen to the people who did not accumulate savings for their own pensions, how they would be when their retirement age comes?
The government plan is to assure that every Canadian regardless of his pocket book, when he or she retires, will have the opportunity to live with dignity and not to live in poverty as the hon. member from across the floor would have it. Every Canadian should live in dignity for the long hours and days they have worked. They should be able to know that some security is there for their old age.
There is an additional reason for us to do this expeditiously. The federal and provincial governments are joint custodians of the CPP. The proposed new rules will need the approval of at least two-thirds of the provinces representing at least two-thirds of the population before they can come into effect. We have to give the provinces the time to do this. They could come into effect within a year.
What we are asking with this policy, with this bill, is not only that the federal government be the custodian but also the provinces. They have to agree. We are not asking, as is claimed across the floor, that we should let those who have live in comfort at the expense of those who have not as much. Later on in life some of us might need to have a government that will protect us. It will not be a pension plan that is exuberant but a pension plan that is realistic.