Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to participate in the debate on Bill C-421 which has been introduced by the member for Calgary--Nose Hill. I want to congratulate her, as some of my other colleagues have done today, for her initiative in bringing this matter before the House.
I believe that this is a long overdue and most welcome proposition for the House to consider. I certainly want to indicate my strong support for the bill. The Alliance and New Democrats may disagree on many issues, but today we stand together on the need for an independent chief actuary appointed by the House, directly reporting to the House, not to the government of the day, not to the Prime Minister's Office, and not to unelected officials, but to members of Parliament who are responsible for the well-being and welfare of Canadians, particularly when it comes to an issue of vital importance, that of pensions and security in old age.
My colleague, the finance critic for the Conservatives, talked about the stranglehold of power in the PMO. I agree with him on that point and say that here we have an idea, a well thought out proposition in the form of well constructed legislation that ought to be supported by all in the House.
I know this is a private member's bill and we are looking for individual support, but I would hope that members on the Liberal side would see this as an important contribution to the whole area of public policy and to the work that they should be doing as government of the land.
I want to address my support for the bill from several different perspectives. We must acknowledge in the House the shift within this institution toward officers who are appointed by Parliament and accountable to the House of Commons. A few years ago no officers reported directly to Parliament. Since then there has been a shift and a change, and a new trend has been set.
Today we have the Chief Electoral Officer reporting to Parliament at great distance from the notion of any political interference. This is important in terms of the electoral process in the country today. We have the Auditor General of this institution reporting directly to Parliament as an independent officer of the House.
There is no question around the positive impact that an independent position has in terms of our confidence in the system and in the scrutiny of the government but also, and I think other members have said this in the debate earlier, in terms of the confidence of Canadians in the function of this place from the point of view of accountability, transparency, integrity and honesty.
Therefore, it is important to acknowledge what has transpired in Parliament over the years on this front and what still needs to happen. Let us also keep in mind that the Commissioner of Official Languages is an independent officer reporting directly to Parliament. So we have had some movement in recent times.
We have also had some controversy over those officers who are neither independent nor appointed by Parliament. There are still questions around political interference and influence. Many members in the debate have focused on some of the controversy surrounding the ethics counsellor, a position that to this day is still appointed by the Prime Minister and is seen often as a rubber stamp of the Prime Minister and representing that stranglehold over decision making coming from the PMO. We have had all kinds of controversy dealing with Shawinigate and Canada Steamship Lines, the latter involving the former finance minister of the House.
We have had allegations and controversies surrounding the sponsorship ads involving the public works ministers, of course starting with Alfonso Gagliano. There have been questions and concerns raised about the ability of the ethics counsellor appointed by the Prime Minister to adequately scrutinize scandals in those areas and to provide objective analysis and recommendations. We also, of course, and I do not need to go into this today at any great length, have had enormous controversy around the privacy commissioner. There are many lessons to be learned from these developments.
Today we are dealing with the question of an independent chief actuary of Canada, a position, an individual who has responsibility to give actuarial information concerning the Canada Pension Plan, to give information and advice around the investments of the CPP Investment Board and the performance of the public service pension fund as well as the RCMP and the Canadian Forces pension funds.
I am referencing the work done by the member for Calgary—Nose Hill in describing the work of the chief actuary and laying the groundwork for the need to make this position absolutely an independently appointed person reporting to the House free from any kind of political influence. At no time has this been more important than today given people's uncertainty and concerns around the future of their pension funds.
We can just refer to recent findings published in the last week or so by Statistics Canada showing that one-third of Canadians from the ages of 45 to 59 years of age face an uncertain retirement future. They believe they face an uncertain retirement future. They believe their retirement incomes will be inadequate. The study went on to show that in fact the greatest concern was among Canadians who were without private pension plans. This is very important information relevant to the debate at hand and is reinforcement for why the position we are talking about has to be independent.
The concerns raised by Canadians may be fed by a lot of uncertainty and false fear spread by private corporate interests and think-tanks: that in fact public pensions will collapse under the weight of the baby boomers. All kinds of information may not be founded in fact and may in fact be inaccurate in terms of the analysis, but needless to say, those kinds of fears tell all of us we have to make sure that Canadians trust the information they are getting and that they are given absolute assurances that their pension funds and their retirement are secure.
Finally, let me point out how important the independence of this position is with respect to the CPP Investment Board. We have had recent concerns raised about the fact that the board is investing on the open market, in the stock exchange, and it has been reported that the board often loses great sums of money in terms of investment of Canadians' pension funds. Today it may be in the black, but that could change.
Finally, I want to point out why that could change and why we need this kind of independent scrutiny. Canadians get very nervous when they read, as they have done today in newspapers across this country, that the foreign Texas Pacific Group, in its effort to purchase Air Canada, “has wooed the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and other institutions about participating in a multibillion dollar fund that would invest in distressed companies”. We all get very nervous reading that this kind of development is taking place, as well as reading that the largest public pension fund in the United States, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, has had to sue a major corporation for losses it alleges resulted from “sham” transactions.
Enough said in terms of our worries and in terms of Canadians' fears. Let us get on with this very important legislative proposal.