Mr. Speaker, this is a serious problem. A couple of years ago, when the dot com craze was happening, investors were getting a return of 15% to 18%. I guess the Government of Canada had a look at the Canada pension plan and said that if it only invested that on the open market, it could get a better rate of return. The results have been catastrophic. The government lost 20% of the money it was given. That is $4.2 billion that we will never get back. That was in the most recent fiscal year.
During that period of time, the government gave the CEO a $100,000 raise and a 20% bonus for doing such a great job. Imagine the kind of bonus he would get if he actually made money. The other members on the board of directors got 50% bonuses for losing $4.2 billion. That is the 11 person Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, made up not with people of necessarily any expertise. One of the people on that board is the Liberal MP whom I beat when I won my seat in Winnipeg Centre. We never really beat Liberals, we just make them rich because they get these fallback positions, such as this scandalous situation of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.
The past practice was that we would use the Canada pension plan to finance, fund and lend to municipalities and provinces, at a low rate of interest, large amounts of money to capitalize necessary infrastructure projects. That no longer happens. Granted we were only getting 2% interest when we loaned money to build sewage treatment plants or any number of things in the communities, but getting 2% interest is a heck of a lot better than losing 20%. It is better than rolling the dice and gambling our pension fund money away.
I would like to know just how this happened because it happened under the radar. The Government of Canada put together this Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. It started out with $17 million, of which it promptly lost $2 million. When the rate of contribution went to 9.9%, all of a sudden the money really started to flow in. The board got it up to $22 billion. Now it has lost $4.2 billion of that, and it predicts it will have $70 billion to invest on the open market within 10 years.
Imagine the amount of money the board will lose if it continues at the current rate of loss. Imagine the amount of necessary infrastructure work that could be done across the country not only in terms of the infrastructure deficit that most communities face, but also in terms of the green infrastructure, the very necessary retrofitting infrastructure that needs to be done in the coming years.
The hon. member could not be more bang on in terms of the best use for this Canada Pension Plan Investment Board money.