Don't talk about disrespectful. We almost had one of the Reform Party fellows going into fisticuffs, climbing over a chair this morning. That is the mentality we see on that side of the House. They should be ashamed of themselves and embarrassed.
Canadians watch television and see the kind of behaviour we saw here this morning. A member actually had to be restrained physically from climbing over chairs to attack another member of Parliament. That is the mentality. That was the Reform Party. Canadians are fed up with that kind of nonsense. Canadians want leadership.
Several years ago another very important pension fund members opposite might be familiar with, the teachers' pension fund of the province of Ontario, was in some difficulty for very similar types of problem.
The contributions had been too low from both the teachers and the employer, the Government of Ontario. The investment procedures used by that pension fund were inadequate and unfair. Many of the roads, bridges, schools and other parts of the infrastructure in our province were paid for from that pension fund at interest rates as low as 3% when market interest rates were in the double digit area. It was a fund from which to borrow cheaply to build public infrastructure.
As a result we wound up with a pension fund the actuarial people said was in serious trouble. The Liberal government in office at the time decided we had to bite the bullet. We increased the contributions of teachers and we matched that with an increase to the employer, the Ontario government. We set up an independent body for investments and today the teachers' fund is one of the strongest financial vehicles in the entire country, perhaps in North America.
The teachers were not happy when we did that. They demonstrated. They came to Queen's Park. They were very unhappy. Today the fund owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, although there are days when I am not sure it would want to. The fund has substantial investments such as investments in newspapers. Teachers have a financially strong pension fund because the government of the day had the courage to make those changes.
I give that example because it relates. The CPP must change from being simply a pay as you go fund, which in a sense is exactly what the super RRSP fund would be. If one has the money to invest and has a job then under the Reform plan one would be able to invest in an RRSP. A lot of Canadians simply do not fall into that category.
This is not rocket science. If we split them out and tell people they will be given the option of opting out of the plan, obviously the financial integrity of the CPP will be jeopardized. We are not prepared to do that. Canadians have investment options for their retirement. They have options to invest in RRSPs. We believe there should be a publicly funded, solid, government backed Canadian pension plan for all Canadians and for future generations.
What do we do? We either increase the contributions, reduce the benefits or change the procedures. Frankly we are doing all of that in an effort to put the CPP in a sustainable format. Yes, there will be an increase.