Mr. Speaker, I certainly do not. That is why I said we needed a stronger economy. If the Liberals had kept their basic promises in the red book of jobs, jobs, jobs, building a strong economy, putting Canadians to work, bringing down the unemployment rate and increasing salaries, the rates would not need to be as high as the government is proposing in Bill C-2.
That is a trick in terms of a pay as you go plan, a plan which means that workers of today pay into the fund to pay pensions to the workers of yesterday. That is what the plan is all about.
As long as unemployment is sitting at 9%, 9.5% or 10% year after year after year, fewer people are contributing to the plan and fewer people are contributing a good sum to the plan. That is the main way of getting the rates down.
We also moved an amendment to lift the ceiling of $35,800 that is there today. The reason is twofold. The first reason is that someone making $35,800 a year pays the maximum amount into the plan. A lot of people are making that kind of salary. Senators and MPs make more than that but we subject to that cap. We pay as much into that plan as somebody making $35,800, or someone making $200,000 or $300,000 pays the same amount into the Canada pension plan as someone making $35,800. That is unfair and should be changed. We are flagging that for the next review.
The Minister of Finance agreed that some of these matters would be looked at. I say to the member opposite that we should make this more progressive, along the lines we have been talking about in the debate.
He also talked about democracy. The Canadian Union of Public Employees was not allowed to make a presentation to the committee. It represents 500,000 workers. The Council of Canadians, by the way, circulated a petition and got back over 500,000 petitions which I personally brought to the office of the Minister of Finance. Its was not allowed to make a presentation to the committee. That might have been the largest petition in the history of Canada. There were 11 mail bags full. The member from Calgary was very impressive carrying 4,000 faxes. That was very positive, but 500,000 petitions is extremely progressive. Yet the council was not allowed to make a presentation before the committee.
I go back to the question the member asked about democracy. It is real democracy when committees start hearing from groups that represent Canadians in such large numbers.