Mr. Speaker, I have to comment upon the hon. parliamentary secretary's observation about two things.
First, is with regard to the independence of the board. An equally independent board of outstanding individuals was put together for the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Eric Kierans served on that board in 1978. He resigned in protest when the government decided to use moneys from that plan against its original purpose. It issued a below market interest loan to the provincial government; in other words, to confiscate money from the Quebec pension plan investment fund and give it as a gift to the government of the day. There is no guarantee under this legislation that the same thing would not happen here.
Second, we hear over and over again from the parliamentary secretary about the unanimous consent of the provinces to this. Let us be clear about why the provinces have been so enthusiastic about this. It is because the Canada pension plan traditionally has invested all its moneys in below market interest bonds to the provinces. It gets the special rate given for federal government bonds, which in some cases is up to 20 basis points lower than the market rate for those provincial government bonds; in other words, used as a method of regional redistribution of moneys as opposed to maximizing the rate of return.
The reason the provinces went along with these changes was because the former minister of finance, the current leading candidate for the Liberal leadership, has gone out and redefined this pension plan. The first thing he did when he was working on this legislation was to expand the amount of money going to the provinces in the form of below market rate investments; in other words, a further theft from the pension savings of Canadians. The parliamentary secretary stands here and defends this. It is absolutely outrageous. He owes an apology to Canadian--