Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-3 and the amendment put forward by my colleague from Lanark—Carleton, who feels that the bill would be improved by the amendment.
I would like to talk about the Canada pension plan in general and the fact that this has been set up for many years to provide pensions to our citizens in the years that they want to call their golden years or sunset years when they can sit at home and enjoy the fruits of their labours.
We have had some considerable concern over the last number of years about the capacity of the plan to do exactly what it was intended to do. Members may recall that the Minister of Finance brought out some new premium structure that would see the Canada pension plan premium rate jump to 9.9% of earnings.
It seems rather strange that he would arrive at the figure of 9.9%. We in the Alliance felt that he was pulling the wool over our eyes, that it would require a substantially higher amount of contributions to sustain the fund as we get into the baby boomer years. He has maintained that 9.9% was that maximum, just a hint and a fraction short of the double digits. I was surprised that he did not go to 9.99%.
I think that the Liberals are pulling the wool over our eyes because we are getting into the baby boomers. We only have to look around this see place and see the amount of grey hair. We are supposed to be representative of--