Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Crowfoot.
The Liberals cannot stand the success of other organizations or programs they are not directly involved with. It is a very dangerous precedent.
The Liberal government is interfering with a pension system established through the collective bargaining process, I might add, to provide a pension for those who work in the public service, the RCMP or other federal government agencies. It is a very bad precedent and a very bad omen that the Liberals are taking the surplus out of this pension plan.
When the actuaries established the plan through the collective bargaining process they said that x number of dollars would be deducted from the employees' salaries, matched by the federal government, and invested so that they have a secure plan. Actuaries can only predict; they cannot tell precisely what the future will hold.
Obviously there is a surplus because of what happened in the economy, with investments, with the longevity of plan members and all other inputs necessary to establish the amount of money required to pay out the pensions. The point of all of this is that similarly it could provide for a shortfall in the long run because it cannot predict how the economy will operate.
I believe very strongly as a person who has spent a lot of time studying pensions in the country that we have to look at the surplus of a pension as being the property of those who contributed to the plan. If there is a long term surplus there should be some consideration. Some decisions should be made in a collective way between employees and employers as to what the surplus should be used for, whether it should be used for a reduction of contributions or improvement of benefits. I believe that is a very important point to be considered.
The Liberal government has made the decision, not through collective bargaining, to take out the surplus. It arbitrarily did it and did not report to the population of the country until it had already done it. By then it was too late. It is like closing the barn door after the cows have left. That is a very bad omen for the country.
I see the Liberal whip is very supportive of my presentation. I hope he will take this matter to the Minister of Finance, as I am sure he is quite supportive of what I am saying, and tell him that these surpluses should not be taken out of the pension funds because they rightfully belong to the employees.