Mr. Speaker, the hon. member just mentioned how important it is to have a social safety net and completely ignores the fact that this so-called social safety net has an unfunded liability of something like $600 billion. It will be in total collapse if we do not deal with the problem right away.
I remember in the previous Parliament to this one, at the beginning when the Reform was asking questions about the CPP and pointing out that it was in danger of collapse, the finance minister and members on that side constantly said “There is no problem. It's a wonderful program.” It was one of these Liberal gifts to mankind. Now, in this Parliament I heard the finance minister just weeks ago in question period say that everyone knows that the CPP is in trouble and needs to be fixed.
While I am pleased to see the Liberals realizing that there is a problem after denying in the last Parliament that there was a problem, I would like the member to explain to me how he can promote this as a good program, a good social safety net when it has an unfunded liability of close to $600 billion and everybody admits that it is in hopeless disarray. There is evidence that similar programs around the world have gone under and have had to be replaced with contributory programs like RRSP style programs. Why does he keep defending something that is indefensible?