Madam Speaker, if I said that the hon. member was deceitful, I apologize and I withdraw. If I said it about his government and about the Tory government before, I absolutely do not withdraw. In fact, I will say it again.
I think successive governments over the years were very deceitful, because they knew full well that eventually this plan would go broke. The people who are paying the price for that today are all the young people who are just coming into the system and who are going to end up getting a 1.8% return on all the money they put into that system for 35 years.
This is according to the actuary. My friend is saying that it is not true. The federal government's own actuary says it is a 1.8% return for those people coming into the system now.
That does not even take into account the foregone returns that they would get if they had that money to put into their own plans. In other words, they will get a negative return.
That is not the least of it. All the young people in the hon. gentleman's riding across the way who he must think probably support his government are going to end up feeling a double whammy because we have a situation where this government will raise CPP premiums by 73%.
How does that affect young people? According to the finance department itself, we have a paper from Joe Italiano in the finance department saying higher payroll taxes are going to kill tens of thousands of jobs. That is what the Liberal government is going to do for young people.
It is going to kill jobs on the one hand so that young people who have the most trouble getting jobs never do get a decent paying job to begin with and then they are going to feel the full weight of the government's CPP hike, 73%, for the entire time they are in the workforce. Ultimately they will get a measly $8,800 pension at the end of it all.
I point out that the government likes to talk about the three pillars of retirement income, CPP, old age security and RRSPs. How has it done in those three areas?
We know that CPP is a complete disaster thanks to the management or the lack of management by the Liberal government and the Tories before.
We know that the way they dealt with seniors incomes under old age security is to propose a plan that will claw back up to 80% of seniors incomes.
My friend just spoke here a minute ago about how the Chileans were doing such a bad job because of the way they were going to impose higher taxes and all that kind of thing on the population there.
What about his own government? An 80% clawback, how is that fair? What about RRSPs? How have the Liberals done there? They have done very poorly as a matter of fact. They have frozen and rolled back the contribution levels that can be contributed to RRSPs to save for retirement.
On the one hand, they are penalizing people through the new seniors benefit for saving. On the other hand, they are rolling back contributions for RRSPs. They rolled back the age of contribution to RRSPs from 71 to 69. It has been made more difficult for everybody who wants to save for their own retirement.
The Reform Party believes that there is a fourth pillar in the retirement system. We believe that tax relief should be the fourth pillar. We have argued and presented a plan in the last election campaign to provide the average family of four with $2,000 of tax relief by the year 2000.
What has the government done? Let us relate the story of the government's record on taxation. The Liberals along with the Conservatives have given us the highest personal income taxes in the G-7 as a percentage of our economy. It is 54% higher than the G-7 average. That is unbelievable to me.
Government members wonder why we have families living in poverty. It is a big mystery to them. Maybe the government should look at its tax record. Maybe it should take into account that since it came to power in 1993 we have seen the total revenues in this country go up by about $25 billion, somewhere in that range.
How much of that has come back to Canadians? Precious little because as a matter of fact we have seen interest on the debt continue to climb. We now see it at $45 billion a year, $7 billion more than when the Liberals came in, which is exactly the amount they have cut out of the health and social transfer.
This government has a terrible record on taxation. It is why we have not seen disposable incomes rise since the 1980s, not at all. They have not gone up one bit. In fact since 1984 they have gone down 6%. That is the record of the Liberal and Tory governments.
If I were a Liberal member I do not think I would be boasting about CPP or OAS, the seniors benefit, or the RRSPs, or their tax record. I think on every score the Liberals have let Canadians down. They have hurt young people. The government has deceived all these people who are operating under the impression that somehow the government will be there for them when they retire.
Let me simply sum up by saying we think it is time the government dropped the scales from its eyes for a moment and stopped to consider that other countries around the world have had some success, more than a little success, with the type of plan we are talking about. Look at the U.K. Look at Australia. Look at the United States which is seriously considering this type of proposal.
My friend across the way can focus on Chile only. He thinks he can make fun of a plan just because it comes from a developing country. We say that the Liberal government is not the only one with a good idea. We think that he speaks in arrogance that befits the Liberals and the Tories before them. But we say there are other ways.
We chastise the government because when it was considering what to do with CPP it did not look at any other plans. This was revealed to us when we brought officials before the finance committee not long ago. We found out that when they considered going around the country with the provinces they did not look at any other plans. Their only option was to see what they could do to fix the CPP.
We say it is time to start looking around. In fact one thing we found out when we talked to the officials is that when they consulted people across the country, their consultations amounted to meeting with 290 people. Two hundred and ninety people for a country of 30 million people, not over this generation but over several generations. They are proposing to make their decision, to raise CPP premiums by 73% on consultations with 290 people.
Who comprised those 290 people? I think 40 of them were individuals. All the rest were people who represented vested interests. Among the people who appeared I noted looking at the interveners list there was a group from the NDP youth, obviously an unbiased group. We saw all of the trade unions represented and we know where they were coming from. We saw the interest of big business. But we did not see ordinary Canadians at these hearings. We know where this government is coming from. The fix was in right from the beginning.
The government should look around and decide for a second that perhaps it does not have the only good ideas. In fact I think its record speaks for itself. It does not have any good ideas. It should perhaps consider for a moment that around the world other people do have good ideas. Let me just say briefly how we think the government should be going.
We think it should consider a mandatory RRSP plan. Give people a choice. Let them choose the Liberal 9.9% plan or let them opt in to a mandatory RRSP. We think many young people would appreciate the chance not to be hamstrung and handcuffed by a government when they begin their work career.
We also believe we should target the seniors benefit to low income people and have a much more gradual clawback than what the government is proposing, which is 80% in some cases. That is absolutely ridiculous. We believe that RRSPs should be enhanced. We believe that people should be allowed to put more money into RRSPs.
It is time for tax relief in this country. Canadians have spoken on this issue. I sit on the finance committee, as do members opposite. They know that people want debt reduction first and tax relief second. Let us give them some tax relief.
I encourage my friends opposite to consider what we have said. Consider what Canadians are saying across the country and wake up and deliver the tax relief and debt reductions which Canadians are asking for.
