Madam Speaker, it always intrigues me when Bloc members wax eloquent about the Canada pension plan when in fact they do not participate in it. I want to respond very briefly to the comments of the Bloc member.
The member said that there are problems with the fund. He described the demographics and so on. The point that needs to be made is that if the fund had been managed properly, demographics would not matter. I wonder if that has ever occurred to those members. Because the fund was mismanaged the money will not be available for those who are looking forward to it as some security for their retirement.
The suggestions made by the Bloc and by the NDP will not fix it. There will be more government mismanagement. They already have their greedy eyes on that money. They are telling us how we should manage it, how we should lend it out at low interest rates and so on. That is what got us into this mess in the first place. More of that will not solve the problem.
The bottom line is that the proceeds should go to those who invested the money. They should have a say in how it is done.
If people looked clearly at what we are proposing, at the whole plan and not just nit-pick at little parts of it, they would begin to realize that is the most realistic solution to our problem with the Canada pension plan. It will take many years to roll it over to the point where people have control over the funds, but that is what we need to do. That is the bottom line.
As long as it is managed by the same people in government who have been managing it up until now, and as long as those people are giving directives and appointing people to boards to manage the fund, we are still going to have the same problem.
The Bloc says there is not the appearance of justice which there should be. We do not want an appearance of justice; we want the fund managed properly so that those who expect a retirement income will get it according to the funds they invested.
I was reading some of the articles which comment on the payroll tax hike we will have. One of the commentators said to kiss 176,000 jobs goodbye. My Conservative colleagues have made the point over and over again that this increase in tax will kill jobs. The evidence is right here. We have been saying the same thing. That has to be a consideration.
For a government that claims to be compassionate, to raise taxes even further and destroy more jobs is the absolute opposite of compassion. Those people over here on the left side who are advocating this have to realize that that is going to be a tremendous job destroyer.
Seniors who retired in 1976 got over $12 for every dollar invested. Young people today who are going to retire in 2041 are going to get 59¢ for every dollar they have in the fund. It is not their fault. It is not the fault of seniors who are getting a very high return now for what they have actually put in. Nor is it the fault of the young people who are going to retire 40 years from now that they did not get a good return. It is the fault of the government that has mismanaged it. For the Bloc to say we need more of that, to only tinker with it a little bit, is not the solution. We have got to have a solution that will serve us for all time. What has been proposed here is not that solution.
I reiterate that their analysis of this is flawed because if it had been done properly in the first place, the demographics would not matter.