Mr. Speaker, obviously the member was not in the House when I spoke earlier or he would have heard me address this issue.
I made a very strong point of saying that I find highly offensive this characterization of contributions to a pension plan as payroll taxes. It is contrary to the whole concept of a sharing, caring, compassionate society where programs are set up to ensure that people who have contributed to society throughout their working lives are able to live a retirement of dignity on a modest income that allows them to afford the necessities of life.
As far as job creation goes, the member is exaggerating somewhat when he says that there is absolutely no disagreement about the fact that employer and employee contributions to such a plan are job killers. The member has not addressed the fact that we will now be setting up an $11.5 billion investment fund, of which 80 percent will be invested in this country. He has done nothing to analyse the positive impact of that private sector investment of people's contributions on the economy.
After four and a half years of Liberal government the economy is in better shape than it has been in in a long time.