Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague opposite for his appointment as critic of veterans affairs. I agree with him that veterans of the second world war and more recent veterans have made huge contributions to our country for which all of us, myself included, are eternally grateful and thankful. We need to be mindful of their needs and the situations in which they find themselves.
However, we also need to be careful about enhancing or increasing pensions at the expense of other generations. One of the biggest challenges we face as a country is the fact that our young people face high unemployment levels relative to other age groups and furthermore pay far more into pension programs than they will ever get out. The contribution rates of young people into the Canada pension plan is 9.9% and they will never get that money out when they retire at age 65.
We need to be careful about intergenerational transfers of wealth, especially on those generations that are at risk of unemployment.