Mr. Speaker, therefore according to the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister, the CPP premiums are contributions and not a tax.
I have on my desk a paper entitled "Growth in CPP/QPP Contributions". In it the author clearly describes contributions to the Canada pension plan and the Quebec plan as compulsory payroll taxes. He demonstrates that increases in the payroll taxes from 1986 to 1993 reduced employment by 26,000 jobs. The author of this paper, Joe Italiano, is with the economic analysis and forecasting division of the Department of Finance.
Who is right, the finance minister who says that CPP premiums are not a payroll tax and that raising them has no impact on jobs, or the analysis of his own department that says exactly the opposite?