Mr. Speaker, the purpose of the amendment now being considered, Amendment No. 9 moved by my distinguidished colleague, the hon. member for Qu'Appelle, is to amend Bill C-2 in order to allow certain provinces to be able to borrow from this huge fund at a very low rate of interest.
It must be remembered that governing means forecasting, anticipating. It means being able to see 10, 20 or even 100 years down the road. If I may, I would like to go back to the early 1960s, when the late Jean Lesage was elected to office in Quebec with his slogan about things having to change. And he was successful.
In 1962, I am sure you will recall the Liberal Party in Quebec talking about being masters in our own province, the primary goal being to create the Quebec pension plan fund and to nationalize Quebec's electricity companies. This phenomenal team included René Lévesque, who did wonderful things in Quebec for Quebeckers, and Eric Kierens.
The Quebec pension plan investments are earning a distinctly higher return. If the QPP loaned money to government corporations at 3, 4 or 5%, it would be in the hole today.
If corrective action is not taken quickly, the CPP will be running a large deficit. With $5.85 on every $100 insurable today, and hundreds of thousands of baby boomers all set to turn 65 at the same time, or just about, the fund will be in the red. The Minister of Finance would then be facing serious problems.
The CPP must therefore be properly managed so as to deliver the highest return possible. To this end, it is anticipated that a minimum of 80% of the fund will be invested in Canada. This could go as high as 99%, of course, but never below 80%. And the 20%, also as a maximum, could be invested in certain foreign countries, where it is the safest to do so. We should not be investing in countries offering 100% or 120% interest, but without any guarantee. In other words, we should not be investing in a company like BREX, which was very profitable, as you noticed also, but many Canadians lost their shirts after having invested in BREX.
So these assets have to be invested, not with a charitable but rather with an intelligent approach, to achieve maximum return, in the same way that such assets are administered in Quebec by the Régie des rentes du Québec. In Quebec, we have our Caisse de dépôt, and in Canada we will have a fund called the Canada investment board, which is the equivalent of the Caisse de dépôt et placement.
In conclusion, I would like here to pay tribute to Jean Lesage and his tremendous team; in 1964, they created the Régie des rentes du Québec, which is working very well and providing fruitful investments for Quebeckers.