Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge my colleague's comments about the Canada pension plan. I do not think there is any question that it is an excellent pension plan. It evolved over the course of the social movement over the years, wanting to ensure that Canadians had some pension benefits. We do get great acclaim throughout the world on our pension plan.
There are some criticisms of course. What has happened is there have been restrictions on pension benefits that go to individuals. I think most of us would like to see that when there are extra dollars in a pension plan, benefits would be expanded instead of restricted, making it somewhat impossible sometimes for people who may access those pension plans.
The specific motion talks about the ethical investment of funds. I know the phrase ethical investments might be a tough phrase for some on the other side to get their heads around, but certainly not for my colleague. The bottom line is I think Canadians actually support ethical investments. They are not totally open to this belief that it should be this open freedom of making money at any cost with the pension funds. I think Canadians have more credibility, values and principles than that.
When she talked about members of the board of the Canada pension plan investment fund, I noticed she did not mention principles or values or the fact that they would take those things into consideration. Therefore, it was just going to be done on the basis of making money at any cost. I do not think that is acceptable to Canadians. That is why we brought this motion forward. We want to see a change. We in the NDP consider the investment in Canada, in Canadian municipalities and cities.
Infrastructure within Canada is a very ethical investment and it will be cost effective. We are not saying give the money away. We are saying allow municipalities and cities to access those funds as investments, the same way private companies can access those funds and use them as investments into their companies. They can pay it back with interest. We are not talking about investment in municipal bonds as such. We are talking about an investment in Canada, and that is what we would like to see.
I would like the member's comments as to whether she thinks the investment of Canada pension funds into Canadian communities is a good investment.