Madam Speaker, how do I respond to something like that because it is on the public record? Members from that party went doorstep to doorstep, aside from their policy positions, knocking on doors promising they would not be part of the pension plan. What did they do? It resulted in getting a lot of them elected to this House only to figure out that they made a huge mistake, that they had families and wives, and some of the benefits that would accrue to their families if something happened to them would obviously be lost. They concluded that it was the wrong thing to do.
To deny that for themselves would be denying their widows or their children and families that they leave behind. Hopefully nothing would happen to any of them but I am saying that as a policy position. They did a complete flip-flop on that.
If the member had been listening carefully I outlined that our position is simply that we support the Canada pension plan and always have. We have always supported modernizing it to meet the changing demographics of Canada. The member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca was absolutely correct, the changing demographics is something that we must be cognizant of. We must change pension plans to reflect the very small growth in the Canadian population and the fact that there will be more Canadians retired when these baby boomers retire. In terms of Canadians working versus those retired, these plans will simply collapse under their own weight.
We have staked out a pretty fair position on this, one that is supported by most Canadians. I go back to that sort of generosity of Canada itself. It is recognized as one of the best countries in the world with social programs for people who really need them. I am not ashamed of that and I will continue to support programs that support the individuals who make up this great country of ours.