Mr. Speaker, it was on this day in 1927 that Liberal Prime Minister Sir William Lyon Mackenzie King approved the old age pension plan. In that historic step, Liberals enacted Canada's first major public welfare legislation, extending income benefits to needy seniors.
Sadly, the Conservatives opposed the move even then. Then in 1963, when Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson began working on the Canada pension plan, the Conservatives again stood firmly in opposition to the idea of retirement income security for working Canadians.
The Conservative Party clearly has a long history of opposing improvements to Canada's pension structures. The Conservatives opposed the Liberal old age pension. They opposed the Liberal idea of the Canada pension plan and today they continue to stand in the way of real pension security.
When will the Prime Minister set aside his party's shameful history on pensions and admit that the Conservatives' approach of more talk and less action is a barrier to real pension reform?