Madam Speaker, tell them to watch my lips. It is a pension plan. We will look after people when they decide to ride off into the sunset with their pension.
The actuaries of the Reform Party have already told them that it would be more costly initially to get into an RRSP plan than it would be to get into the CPP. They know full well that is the truth.
Another motion that was put forward, I believe it is No. 11, suggested that the new contribution rate schedule be deleted and the old unsustainable schedule remain in effect. That would be absolutely devastating. This motion would put the financial sustainability of the CPP at risk, which is the very thing our bill addresses. We want this plan to be sustainable. That is why Bill C-2 is before the House.
This motion most certainly should not be considered, as far as we are concerned. It would bankrupt the plan by the year 2015. I realize that some members opposite are bankrupt of ideas with respect to the CPP, but the plan would actually have no money in it by the year 2015 if we went along with this motion.
We are talking about money. The Greek philosopher, Sophocles, once said that there is nothing so demoralizing in the world as money or the lack thereof. I say to members opposite that if we went along with some of these motions there would certainly be a lack of money in the pension plan. Therefore we cannot endorse them.
Motion No. 22 would delete the requirement for increased contribution rates to cover the costs of new or increased benefits.
That is an important statement of principle, but the federal and provincial governments agreed that any future benefit enrichments must be paid for and that we should never ever again put the security of the CPP at risk by enriching benefits without being able to pay for them. We must have the money to pay for these benefits. We will ensure that because we want to ensure that our young people most certainly of all are not saddled with this unbearable burden.
This leads to leadership. As you well know, Madam Speaker and members opposite, leadership is not necessarily a leadership act. On many occasions it is a moral act. It is not merely the assertion of power, but the assertion of vision. It is having the moral integrity and the intellectual courage to make this vision compelling.
I know the Leader of the Opposition and I believe the leaders of some of the other parties when referring to the throne speech brought forth and quoted fairly liberally from a great Canadian. I know the hon. Leader of the Opposition most certainly did. It was Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Sir Wilfrid Laurier over a hundred years ago had this to say, and I will paraphrase it, about liberalism. Before some of the members opposite start indulging in idle rhetoric and yelling at me, it is small “l” liberalism.
“Liberalism is inherent in the very essence of our nature. It is that desire of happiness with which we are all born into the world. We constantly gravitate toward an ideal which we never attain. We dream of good but never realize the best and thus it will be as long as people are what they are. As long as their immortal soul inhabits a mortal body, their desires will always be vaster than their means”.
The means by which we are going to set a plan that is viable and is sustainable for the youth of this country is this Canada pension plan because we and I believe all members in this chamber care. We as federal members of Parliament must lead the way. We must get Canadians to look beyond the Teflon and the show biz of perhaps question period and perhaps of some of the things we do and say in this House. We must get them to look at the reality of life.
This will not be done by each and every member in this House standing up and reading a speech that has perhaps been penned by hired guns, a speech that perhaps sounds good. We need speeches that are good and sound. We do not need speeches that bring people to their feet. We need speeches that bring people to their senses.
To do this each and every one of us as parliamentarians must make sacrifices. We must give up a little bit of our self-interest. On occasion we cannot get exactly what we want. The truth of the matter is that this truth must ring loud and clear. It must not be muffled by crass manipulation.
The truth of the matter is that in order to proceed as parliamentarians, in order to proceed with this bill, our people must be more intelligent, more highly organized, our social standards more just and each and every person in this chamber, in the House of Commons, must be more united in our cause. We must not fail in our duty at this time.
As parliamentarians we must believe in a country as blessed as ours, and blessed we are with the riches of our natural resources, be they gas, oil, water or timber. The richness we really have is our human resources. All members in this House, irrespective of their race, creed, colour, religion or political affiliation, must come together and do what is best for our country Canada.
We must believe that we will be able to reach out to those people, reach out to the hungry, the homeless, the sick and the destitute. How do we do that? By bringing forth a bill such as Bill C-2, a Canada pension bill that is good for all. It is time that we stood up and shaped our own Canadian identity, that we stood up and did what we have to do.
What we have to do is endorse Bill C-2 because it is a tremendous bill. By following this bill, we can and will lead the entire country into a brighter, more prosperous, more beautiful future.