Mr. Speaker, I had the benefit of reading this bill last night. I can assure hon. members that if there is any need for insomnia cures, this would be a recommended bill to read. As the hon. parliamentary secretary said, it is a very technical bill. It will be debated in committee and will be supported by our party. The previous questions had to do with fairly technical issues about transferability and calculation of the pensions.
It is an important bill and it one which rectifies a number of inequities in our treatment of this very important institution and the men and women who constitute the RCMP and their role and contribution to our society. It builds upon the work that was done in the Canadian Forces Superannuation Act in 2003, which modernized these pensions.
As I said, the Liberal Party will support the bill and it will be one that I hope receives a thorough review in the committee so these inequities can be addressed.
Pensions have been a subject of concern for Canadians for a while now. Going back to the previous government, the Chrétien and Martin years, pensions were addressed as an overall concept, particularly with respect to the Canada pension plan. Over much protest, particularly by the Conservative Party but by others as well, the Canada pension plan was made into a viable, fiscally sound pension plan. In fact, it is fiscally sound for 75 years, which is the last year I heard. Primarily it was done by the upping of contributions by way of payroll deductions, which was good. Now we are in a very serious economic situation and we can take some comfort in the fact that the Canada pension plan is a viable one and Canadians can rely on that.
I am quite pleased the government has appointed the parliamentary secretary to review federally regulated pension plans. There certainly are some controversies around pension plans at this stage, particularly with respect to the ratios, the amounts of money that need to be set aside to fund the pension obligations. Those ratios are under strain.
One issue that will come up, particularly with respect to pension plans that will be unable to meet the criteria, is the issue of whether we would move the age of eligibility upward, which is a breach of good faith with those who have counted on 65 being the age of eligibility. That would have to be a question. I hope the parliamentary secretary and the government will address that. They will also have to address the huge meltdown in assets that has taken place.
Caisse de depot, for instance, has lost something in the order of 25% of its value over the last year, about $40 billion, some of it just by virtue of the market cycle, but some by virtue of very poor investments in asset-backed commercial paper.
In this morning's news, the teachers' pension plan was reorganizing its portfolio away from direct investments in Canadian corporations and into less direct investments in a broader array of companies, particularly in derivative products. That is a decision, the consequences of which is the teachers' pension plan will have less influence in the boardrooms of the nation, which some might argue is not a good thing.
The entire pension field is operating in a real state of flux as the economics and the viability of pension plans come under question. We have for instance, the GM Chrysler pension plans and all of us have significant pressure for this bailout. The irony is that Canadian taxpayers, 70% of whom do not have pensions, are being asked to “bail out” the pension plans of Chrysler workers, GM workers and possibly even Air Canada workers.
I have been contacted, as I am sure other members have been contacted, about the inequity and unfairness of people without pensions being asked to bail out people who have pensions. This will strain the government's resources and it is a moral issue as to how parliamentarians react to those claims. These are questions will have to be asked.
I commend the government for appointing the parliamentary secretary to at least stimulate the conversation and engage the debate. I wish the government had moved on this issue a bit earlier, as these questions will take a great deal of time to resolve and a great number of financial resources. We are in a situation where we have declining financial capacity, yet we are forced to address these questions.
On the narrow and specific issue of the Liberal Party's support for Bill C-18, we will vote in favour of having the issues raised here and others raised in committee. The Liberal Party supports the bill in principle.