Mr. Speaker, I am convinced that, in today's world where so many people know so much about investments, there are ways to reconcile the issue of maximum rate of return with very specific social responsibility criteria.
In fact, I fully agree with my colleague that it would be completely paradoxical for us, on the one hand, to implement certain environmental or health care policies, such as anti-smoking measures, while investing in companies trying in fact to avoid their national and international responsibilities or get around government policies.
I look at today's criteria and objectives and I wonder if these objectives are specific enough, for example, to prevent a major cigarette manufacturer from being selected as an investor by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. I am not too sure about this.
Consequently, I fully agree with my colleague that, at all costs, we must establish precise criteria to avoid falling into a paradoxical situation, such as supporting certain policies, as a Parliament and a democracy and, at the same time, trampling on these same principles in the CPP. That would be illogical.
It seems to me there are ways to amplify, identify and improve the current objectives and principles so they are much more restrictive and specific.