Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take part in the debate on a bill which will have an impact not only in the coming months or years, but for a long time.
First, I want to stress how important it is for each party sitting in the House to propose clear and understandable alternatives to Canadians. This is a good example of an issue concerning which it is not enough to oppose for the sake of opposing, to merely say “I am opposed to this or that provision”. The impact of this legislation on the lives of Canadians is such that we must clearly say where we stand regarding this bill.
NDP members have expressed views which, I think, are rather clear. I do not agree with a number of their ideas, but I give them credit for being clear. The same goes for the Liberal government. Today, I will talk about our own choices and those of all the parties.
First, I want to thank two members of this House for making an exceptional contribution to this debate. They did so with great rigour and honesty. The first one is the hon. member for Markham, our finance and Treasury Board critic, whom I sincerely thank for his contribution. The second one is the hon. member for Madawaska—Restigouche, our human resources development critic, who also did an exceptional job regarding this issue.
When this piece of legislation came before the House, we consented in good faith that it go to second reading and to committee so that in committee we could have a real debate about the impact of this legislation. We did it assuming that the government would be listening. Assuming. We were wrong. Very wrong. The government did not listen. It did not listen, it did not pay attention.
It is important to point out to Canadians that this Liberal government is ramming this through Parliament now. It is the steamroller approach. There is a reason for this. It has to do with the fact that it is trying to get this done before Canadians actually find out what hit them and what has happened to them.
I see the parliamentary secretary smiling and smirking on the other side of the House. What the government is going to say is, “We concocted a deal with the provinces. We have to make this happen now”. I can hear it now. That is wrong.
We have talked to provincial governments and provincial governments have told us very clearly that there is a lot of time to get this through and there are a number of disagreements that they have with the federal government on this. But no, this has to be done now.
In this House of Commons, and the election only happened six months ago, this government has imposed closure on this bill twice. So much for democracy. So much for openness. So much for accountability. Let me speak briefly on why that is the case.
For Canadians this is an $11 billion bite out of our economy. In six years this government is literally going to go out and suck $11 billion out of the Canadian economy through nothing less than added payroll taxes by increasing premiums 73%. It is already sucking $12 billion to $13 billion out of our economy through payroll taxes and employment insurance premiums that it need not do for the purpose of bringing down the deficit. Why is the government doing it? It must be because we have 9.1% unemployment and it is not high enough. The government wants it to actually go higher. This is the choice it has made.
This is why the government is trying to ram it through. This is why this debate is happening at this point in time as opposed to having the debate we should have had so that Canadians would be allowed to know what is happening.
I mentioned a little earlier about the importance of every political party putting forward their position. I cannot allow this debate to happen without talking frankly and honestly to Canadians about the failure of the Reform Party to deal with this issue.
We would think that the Reform Party as the official opposition would have the obligation not only to oppose but to present a view. What we have instead is the $600 billion hole. The Reform Party said that it would like to have some sort of recognition bond. However, there are $600 billion worth of liabilities now taken in the CPP. The Reform Party's position is that we should just scrap it, forget it and forget those Canadians who are old and sick and although they gave money into the system let us just cut them off.
That is a pretty good example of ideology gone haywire. It is similar to the position the Reform Party took on Kyoto, the climate change debate, where there is apparently no science. We soon expect the Reform Party to announce to us that cigarette smoke is good for our health.
In that spirit, the Reform's position on the CPP is one that has weakened the debate because we would have expected the official opposition to play its role and offer a position. I think the Liberals would agree with us on that failure. I see them nodding on the other side. I think the NDP and the Bloc would agree as well.
We have a few problems with this legislation. We agree that the CPP should be made sustainable. We need to help Canadians and ensure that this fund is put on a very solid footing. In order to allow this to happen, yes, we agree that regrettably there has to be an increase in premiums.
We then take a very different position from that of the government in that this increase in premiums cannot be allowed to happen without offsetting this increase with tax reductions, in particular with reductions in other payroll taxes such as employment insurance premiums. By the way, so that we are clear on where the government stands on this, this was exactly the position taken by the Government of Ontario in regard to changes to the CPP. This is exactly the position it took.