Debates of Feb. 1st, 2012

Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I know the Liberals want to reduce, for example, the number of seats in the House of Commons for Newfoundland and Labrador, but the debate today is about the pooled registered pension plan.

I want to ask the member what makes the pooled registered pension plan different from the RRSPs we currently have? I ask him because group RRSPs are an available option that has not really been used. In fact, the take-up rate of RRSPs by people eligible for them is around 24%, and the amount they contribute is 6% of what they are allowed. How are PRPPs going to be different? The PRPP seems to have been put forth as a great panacea, yet it does not really solve any of the problems of people who, even now, cannot contribute to an RRSP. We obviously need a plan where there is a contribution from the employer and employee to actually make it work and provide a decent retirement income.

Would he care to comment on that? Why would we bother with this if RRSPs are already there?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

One of the reasons we have to bother with it is that we have to recognize that, yes, there are some mistakes within the legislation that if amended would make it even better. We also need to acknowledge that we live in a federal state with provinces that have also requested it. When members of the New Democratic Party stand up and speak about the bill, they have already made their determination about it, even if the people of Quebec say, yes, they want to have this option.

That is really what this is: it is an option. How we define that option so that people would be able to maximize the benefit of this option is something that we have some difficulty with in terms of the way in which this government is approaching it, especially when we have provinces across Canada that appear to want to see the legislation.

The best I can tell is that the New Democratic Party is alone inside the House, not necessarily in other provinces. The NDP in provincial jurisdictions seem to be timidly supporting the principle of it.

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Halifax, Natural Resources; the hon. member for Etobicoke North, the Environment; and the hon. member for Cape Breton—Canso, Service Canada.

Resuming debate, the hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transport]

Mr. Speaker, over 60% of Canadians have no workplace pension. That is because many employers do not want the legal or administrative burden of offering them. These costs can be prohibitively high and the benefits inordinately low for a small business with a limited budget and only five or ten employees.

Let us consider or create an example. Joe and Martha Stephens are a married couple without a pension plan. He owns a corner store and she works as a restaurant manager. Neither the restaurant nor the corner store has enough employees to justify the cost of running a pension plan for its people. It is true that RRSPs help as an option, but some people find them too intimidating or time consuming to establish. On average, each Canadian has about $18,000 in unused RRSP room.

What if thousands of Canadian workers from these kinds of businesses could pool their benefits together to achieve the bulk-buy savings that come with a pooled plan? That would spread the risks and costs among a larger number of people. That is exactly what the pooled registered pension plan offers. Canadians would be able to buy in bulk and get better purchasing power. All of a sudden, the Joes and Marthas and millions of people like them who are on their own could join forces and secure affordable pensions. The design of these plans will be straightforward with simple enrolment and management. A third-party administrator, normally a bank, insurance company or existing pension plan, would be responsible for the administrative and legal duties.

What a relief for a small business owner. These plans would also be subject to the standard pension rules that exist for plans across the sector right now, unlike group RRSPs, which have no similar standard of regulatory practice.

The opposition parties oppose this idea because it is a private sector solution. They believe that government should run and operate everything. They particularly oppose the fact that these pooled pension plans would invest in the stock market. What they fail to realize is that the entire pension system, public and private, relies heavily on the stock market already. Consider the Canada pension plan, 49.6% of which is invested in equities or stocks. These stocks can only pay income into the CPP out of their after-tax profits. Liberals and the NDP want to raise taxes on the very businesses that the CPP invests in. The result would be increased pressures on our public pension system.

For example, the CPP owns $59 million in Bank of Nova Scotia shares. When that company profits, so does the CPP and, ultimately, so do the millions of Canadians who rely upon it. The CPP also owns $13 million in TransCanada shares. Does TransCanada ring bells in this place? I ask because TransCanada is the same company that is attempting to build the Keystone pipeline, which, admittedly, would profit that company but would, by definition, also profit its owners of whom $13 million is represented by the Canada pension plan and the 17 million Canadians who are invested in that plan. The opposition, which opposes this pipeline, is attacking a company that is literally paying its profits into the CPP fund.

The opposition parties are also attacking workplace pension plans, even though they do not realize they are doing so. Take the Canada Post pension plan. During the debate over the postal strike, members of the New Democratic Party simultaneously demanded that the existing pension plan for mail workers be bolstered and that business taxes go up. These concurrent demands are painfully ironic.

The top five holdings of the Canada Post pension plan are the Toronto Dominion Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of Nova Scotia, Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources. The banks and oil companies, the twin villains in every left-wing storyline, paid dividends into the pension fund of these unionized workers. These dividends come exclusively from after-tax profits. That means that if we tax these profits more, pensioners will ultimately get less.

On January 1, 2012 the final instalment of our business tax cuts took effect, dropping the rate from 15% to 22%. That is a one-third reduction. By contrast, the NDP election platform proposed increasing the business tax rate from 15% to 19.5%, a one-third hike. That would be a $9 billion tax increase on job creators, the companies in which pension funds are invested. Liberals propose a similar hike on these job creators. That would drastically reduce the after-tax earnings left to the pension funds that own these shares.

We should celebrate the fact that workers are invested in capital markets. It is good for everyone involved. People grow their retirement savings while their money provides investment capital to companies that create jobs.

However, the benefit is not just economic but also societal. Politicians always like to divide people along socio-economic class lines, the workers versus capitalists. However, the two are increasingly becoming one and the same due to direct or indirect share ownership by workers. The old utopian socialist dream was for workers to become owners of the means of production through a process of forced collectivization, nationalization and expropriation.

In an ironic twist of fate, it was the capitalistic stock market and not the state that made workers into business owners. Pooled pension plans, tax free savings accounts, lower taxes on businesses and workers give Canadians ownership over their own destinies. Herein lies the sharp difference between this side of the House and that side. Members on that side want to turn workers against business owners; we want to turn workers into business owners. That is the hopeful, uplifting message that our government offers Canadians who aspire to a brighter, more secure and prosperous future.

[Mike Sullivan, NDP, York South—Weston, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my colleague's speech.

Once again he has reiterated the Conservative Party's second story about tax cuts for businesses, that the tax cuts for businesses have resulted in greater profits.

His colleague, the Minister of Finance, would suggest that is not the case, that the tax cuts for businesses were to create jobs. One cannot suck and blow at the same time: Either there are profits to be made in otherwise profitable corporations by lowering their tax burden, or they will create jobs. We cannot do both. Which is it?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in fact the hon. member is wrong. That is the core difference between us and them. We believe that the amount of wealth in a society can actually grow, and that by investment there is more to go around for everyone. They believe there is a finite, static amount of wealth in existence and that the only way to give more to one is by taking away from another, that the only way for one person to move up the ladder is by pulling someone else down.

The answer is that when we cut business taxes, we increase the return on investment for the investors, and that means they invest more because it is a more lucrative proposition.

Who are these investors? They are pension funds. They are people who are retiring and using mutual funds as income for their families, their kids and grandkids. How does this create jobs? It allows more capital so that businesses can hire, purchase new equipment and create more economic activity, all of which put people to work.

The answer is that when we lower business taxes, yes, we increase the return on investment to the pension funds, the mutual funds and the savings that our seniors have invested, and in the process we make it possible for businesses to grow, hire more people and expand opportunity.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I now know why Newt Gingrich likes to give a shout out to Canada. After hearing something like that, he must really like us now.

The member talked about the beauty of having the private sector involved in all of our pensions, most notably, the one which I am particularly fond of, the CPP. The Canada pension plan and its activities with the investment board does this country a good service. The private sector, no doubt, plays a major role, far more major than we even know. The member says that we should celebrate pensions involved in the private sector.

Since the member has been here six years, how come his pension is not involved in the private sector?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I personally do not run the pension system around here but I am interested to learn that the hon. member has all of a sudden taken an interest in it. I have never once heard Liberals say that they wanted to cut their own entitlements. In fact, entitlement has been the driving force behind the Liberal Party for approximately a generation. It is the uniting principle of the Liberal Party.

Today we are talking about the pensions of Canadians and the fact that we need a strong, robust business sector in order, not only to employ people today but to pay out the dividends that form the income of our pension plans. That requires a strong, free enterprise economy, and that is what we are providing.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the parliamentary secretary to perhaps amend his remarks. I think he mistakenly referred to a postal strike. I think he meant the postal lockout.

My question is on other urgent pension matters that I do not know that the government is dealing with. I wish we were able to look at pension issues and not be merely focused on this quite inadequate private sector pooled registered pension plan. Instead, I wish we were able to look at the urgent issue that pensions that were not protected in the private sector be protected as secured creditors in bankruptcy, such that the workers at Nortel would not be wiped out by what happened to them. This is a continual problem in our economy.

Why are we not acting to protect the pensions of people under the superannuation scheme, of retired RCMP, military and civil servants who lose pension benefits to their surviving spouse if they remarry after age 60.

Those are urgent issues and I do not see the government addressing them.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has raised good questions.

I would simply add that in order for any of our pensions, public or private, to function, we need a strong business sector generating the wealth to pay into those funds.

We have created a vibrant business sector by signing nine new free trade agreements, by lowering business taxes by one-third, by cutting red tape and by moving forward with a budget that is coming this spring that will reduce the cost and the burden of government so that we can unleash the strength of free enterprise so that people can aspire to provide for themselves, their families and, eventually, for their retirements.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to thank my NDP colleagues for their various interventions on the government bill before us here today. I think this is a very important subject, one that Canadians are really concerned about. A number of people from my riding have contacted me to share their concerns about their retirement. That is why I wanted to speak here today.

In a democratic country like Canada, the right to retire in dignity after working hard one's entire life is absolutely fundamental. What I mean by “in dignity” is having enough money to pay for groceries, to pay the rent and to pay for health care. The current economic situation, economic projections for the future and our aging population are all crucial factors in determining how we, as a society, should manage our retirement programs.

In that regard, I must commend the government for recognizing the issues that will affect how and when Canadians retire and for trying to come up with solutions to ensure a decent retirement for everyone. Where I disagree with the Conservatives—and where I agree more with the NDP's opinion—has to do with how the government is going about solving the growing problem of access to a decent income when the time comes to retire. Bill C-25, introduced by the government, has many flaws that really need to be examined and understood by Canadians, because, I would remind the House, it is their money on the line.

According to the main points of the bill, the new pooled registered pension plans, PRPPs, a retirement savings vehicle very similar to RRSPs, would enable plan members to pool their funds to reduce costs associated with managing the plan's investments. The bill notes that the benefits of PRPPs are transferable, but that they are not indexed to inflation. These plans are intended for self-employed workers and small and medium-sized businesses that do not have the means to manage a private sector pension plan.

Despite the government's claims, pooled registered pension plans will not enable Canadians to achieve their retirement goals. The plans will not improve income security for retired workers. The plan proposed here is a defined contribution plan, not a defined benefit plan. In this kind of plan, employees set aside funds throughout their working lives, and those funds are invested in stocks, bonds, mutual funds and so on. Investment income depends entirely on market fluctuations. That is an extremely important point. The employees absorb all of the financial risk associated with stock market ups and downs.

If the government made an effort to listen to all of the Canadians whose RRSPs melted away like snow in sunshine in 2008, it would understand that more stable and secure savings options should be made available. People who can tolerate significant risk can turn to the stock market and RRSPs. Worse still, depending on the province, employers could potentially be required to offer this plan to their employees without having to contribute. People already have the option of contributing to a savings plan without employer participation. That is called an RRSP. What more does the government have to offer?

Last November, in its press release announcing Bill C-25, the government said:

...over 60% of Canadians do not have a workplace pension plan. Because of this, our government acted by introducing legislation...that implements pooled registered pension plans.... Our Conservative government is delivering PRPPs to offer a new, low-cost and accessible pension option to help Canadians meet their goals.

What low-cost, accessible pension is the Conservative government talking about? Last year, only 31% of eligible Canadians contributed to an RRSP. The rest just could not afford to. Currently, Canadians have $500 billion in unused RRSP contribution room available.

Let us say it again loud and clear: Canadians do not have access to an affordable and accessible retirement because they have absolutely nothing left at the end of the month to put into savings. And the Conservatives are asking them to take what little they have managed to put aside and put it into investment funds administered by banks, the very banks that have nearly wiped out the global economy, with no guaranteed income and no guarantee that the funds available will see the workers all the way through retirement?

And the Conservatives want these funds to be managed by fund management “experts” at the banks and insurance companies without any limits on the cost of their management fees and bonuses that will be paid out of the pockets of our future retirees?

During a radio interview, the Minister of Industry said:

By pooling retirement savings, PRPPs will allow Canadians to benefit from greater purchasing power. We are talking about economies of scale here. Canadians will essentially be able to buy in bulk. Professional administrators will exercise a duty of care to ensure that the funds are invested in the best interests of the plan members.

In my opinion, the advantage of economies of scale is quite questionable. We should learn from the Australian experience, but this government is again turning a deaf ear, as it did to the warnings from the United States about the omnibus Bill C-10.

Ten years ago in Australia, a similar system provided very disappointing results. Their system was mandatory, with the possibility to opt out, a bit like what the government wants to do here. The Australians came to the conclusion that, even though people saved because it was mandatory, the returns on investment did not outpace inflation.

The report commissioned by the Australian government attributes these discouraging results to the high costs and fees, even though it was thought that competition among the banks would, as we just heard, lead to reduced costs and economies of scale. So much for that argument; it does not fly. Let us have the wisdom to learn from our Australian counterparts and avoid making the same mistakes.

What Canadians want is not another incentive to save more money. The average Canadian is already trying to save and can barely manage. First we have to come up with a solution closer to the source of the problem. Canadians want to have a decent income that will allow them to save. The solution is job creation.

The excessive debt of Canadian households has made the headlines again, and 1.6 million Canadian seniors are living in poverty. By OECD standards, the CPP system is relatively miserly since other similar countries have much more generous public pension plans.

In 2010, one in four workers had a low-wage job. Does the government think that a Canadian who earns $13 an hour will be able to meet his needs and the needs of his family and contribute to his PRPP, where his hard-earned money will be at the mercy of the stock market as it operates today?

Canadians must understand that the measures proposed here are superficial and risky. The government has not taken the time to carefully consider the problem.

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to my colleague's speech. I get to do so on regular occasions because we share standing committee duties together.

My question is with regard to the gap between the rich and poor. We have heard countless times in the House, and Statistics Canada releases regular reports, about how the gap between the rich and the poor is widening and how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That is mostly due to things like market investments and the way the tax system is currently structured.

I wonder if my colleague could tell me how this particular bill might contribute to either widening or reducing the gap between the rich and the poor in Canada.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is important to understand that, in our society, there are ordinary folks who do not even have the money to contribute to an RRSP each year. They are unable to put money into a TFSA, as the government suggests, to save money. These people are earning salaries of $28,000, $30,000 or $35,000 a year. Some of them have spouses and some have children.

These salaries are below or close to middle-class wages. These people really do not have money to invest. The gap between the rich and poor continues to grow. They cannot even make ends meet, let alone get caught up. I do not understand how the government can think that people will be able to save and invest in a pension plan if the employer and the public purse do not contribute to it.

[Bruce Hyer, NDP, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have tied their pension reform agendas to reforming MP pensions. Perhaps it is because I am long way from qualifying for a pension here, but I think MP pensions should be tied to the average pension of Canadians.

Why have Conservatives moved to make MPs decide on their pensions in camera behind closed doors? Many Canadians would see this as being like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Why will the Conservatives not let an independent panel decide what should happen with our MP pensions?

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we were all surprised to hear that our pension funds are protected with an interest rate of approximately 10%. In any case, the new members are probably not thinking about pension funds yet. They still have some way to go. Canadians should be able to invest in funds that will allow them to earn a profit and they should be able to have a pension that will allow them to buy food and pay their rent when they are retired.

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in favour of Bill C-25. Ensuring that Canadians are able to retire with financial security is of paramount importance to our government. Therefore, we are helping millions of Canadians save for retirement more easily by introducing the pooled registered retirement pension plans. This new low cost and accessible option will help more Canadians meet their retirement goals. This is especially important for those working in small business and the self-employed.

PRPPs will improve the range of retirement saving options by providing a new accessible, straightforward administratively low cost retirement option for employers to offer their employees. It will allow individuals who currently may not participate in a pension plan, such as the self-employed and employees of companies that do not currently offer a pension plan, to make use of this new type of retirement vehicle. It will enable more Canadians to benefit from the lower investment management costs that will result from membership in a large pooled plan. It will allow accumulated benefits to move with each individual as he or she moved from job to job. It will ensure that funds are invested in the best interests of the plan members.

What has led to the development of PRPPs? Canada's aging population and the global financial crisis have highlighted the need for retirement income security. In this context, a joint federal-provincial working group was established in May 2009 to undertake an in-depth examination of retirement income. The working group concluded that overall the Canadian retirement income system was performing well and provided Canadians with an adequate standard of living upon retirement.

However, some Canadian households, especially modest and middle-income households, are at risk of not saving enough for retirement. There are a number of factors that may be contributing to this risk, including declining participation in employer-sponsored registered pension plans. The proportion of working Canadians with such plans has declined from 41% in 1991 to 34% in 2007.

Some Canadians may also be failing to take advantage of the discretionary savings opportunities offered to them through individual structures like RRSPs. Participation in RRSPs reached a peak of 45% of the labour force in 1997, before levelling off to 39% in 2008.

After careful consideration, the ministers of finance agreed to pursue a framework to establish pooled registered retirement pension plans as an effective and appropriate way to help bridge existing gaps in the retirement system.

There are many benefits to PRPPs.

First, PRPPs are an innovative new pension plan designed to address the lack of low cost, large scale retirement savings options available to many Canadians.

Second, some Canadians may be failing to take advantage of the savings opportunities offered to them through individual structures like RRSPs. For an example, on average, each Canadian has over $18,000 in unused RRSP room.

Third, many Canadians can only access a workplace pension plan if their employers offer one. Many employers do not want the legal or administrative burden of offering a pension plan. As a result, over 60% of Canadians do not have a workplace pension. Recent data suggests that 97.8% of total business establishments are small firms, those that employ 15 people or less, and at this time these firms are unable to efficiently provide a pension plan for their employees due to the costs presented by such plans. As a former business owner, I understand the difficulties associated with the costs and burden of administering a workplace pension plan.

Fourth, the designed features of the PRPP will remove a lot of the traditional barriers that might have kept some employers in the past from offering pension plans to their employees.

Fifth, the design of these plans will also be straightforward to allow for simple enrolment and management. A third party PRPP administrator will take on most of the responsibilities that employers bear in existing pension plans, including the administrative and legal duties associated with administering such a plan.

Sixth, by pooling pension savings, PRPPs will offer Canadians greater purchasing power. They will be able to buy in bulk. Achieving lower prices than would otherwise be available, means they will get greater returns on their savings and more money will be left in their pockets when they retired.

Finally, PRPPs are intended to largely harmonize from province to province, which also allows for lower administrative costs.

Bill C-25 is of great importance to Canadians. We must give Canadians the confidence that when they finally do retire, they will be financially secure. In order to achieve this goal, our government has put forward a strong proposal to provide Canadians with the ability to save for their retirement on their own terms. Our government is working tirelessly to ensure financial stability for all Canadians. Providing proper pension opportunities is one of the ways we can ensure we stay firmly focused on what matters most to Canadians, jobs and a strong economy.

Pooled registered pension plans are a smart and effective way for our people to save for tomorrow today. Therefore, I urge all those present today to join me in supporting Bill C-25.

[Dan Harris, NDP, Scarborough Southwest, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member raised the point that most Canadians had upward of $18,000 in unused RRSP limits.

My experience with RRSPs, and those of my friends and people around my age, is that we are not using up all that space because we do not have the money to invest in the first place because there are no good paying jobs or jobs that come with benefits and defined pensions.

How does the member think that this new pooled pension plan will somehow solve that problem if Canadians do not have enough money to invest in their pensions in the first place?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is actually making our argument for us. People do not have enough money, ergo they will need a secure pension when they retire.

Right now Canada has the strongest economy in the G8. However, our economic recovery is fragile and can be affected by circumstances beyond our control. Therefore, what we have decided to do as a government is introduce at this point in time a pooled registered retirement pension plan so when Canadians reach the age of retirement and are able to withdraw from their work, they will have a secure income in which to do so and have the confidence to carry on a good quality of life.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I want to follow up on a question that I presented this afternoon during question period. I did not get an answer from the minister, so I will ask it of that member.

I had raised the question of whether there would be any changes in policy or legislation that were being contemplated by the government regarding the Old Age Security Act. I raised it from the premise that previous changes had been made to the policy, which affected current beneficiaries of the old age security benefits under the guaranteed income supplement in 2010.

The government has said that there will be no changes that affect current pensioners. I could not get an answer from the minister though when I asked if the government was contemplating any changes in either policy or legislation to the OAS Act. Is the answer yes or no?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is strange that the member would ask me such a question. The focus of our remarks today are on the PRPP. Bill C-25 is about that. However, he did reference that he wanted to ask it of the government. I would suggest that the government is the Prime Minister and the cabinet and that he has ample opportunity during question period to pose his questions to the Prime Minister or to the appropriate members of cabinet.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a number of small businesses have the option of signing their employees on to group RRSPs, and many do. What would the advantage be of a company signing on with the pooled registered pension plan as opposed to going the group RRSP route?

[Mark Adler, Conservative, York Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is very insightful. I would suggest that the advantage of going the PRPP route as opposed to being able to fill out one's full complement of RRSP or group RRSP is like comparing apples and oranges.

The PRPP represents a payment at time of retirement, without having to contribute as much income as one would into an RRSP. It is much more cost-effective and would also cover those people who just do not have enough discretionary income either at the employer level or employee level to contribute to an RRSP or a group RRSP. Therefore, the PRPP is certainly the way to go and much more cost-effective for everyone concerned.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour, as always, to stand and represent the people of Timmins--James Bay.

The voices of the people of Timmins—James Bay are once again being shut down by a government that is afraid to deal with the pension crisis that it is creating. The government has shut down debate on an issue that is fundamental to the future of Canadians, their pensions. The government shows amazing contempt for the democratic process.

However, I think the government really wants to get the pension issue off the table as fast as possible. When people look at this so-called pension plan, the average Canadian knows this is a scam and it is not going to fly.

Pensions were the first thing I learned about in politics. My granny Angus lived in a little room upstairs in our townhouse. She was a mining widow. Every month when that Canada pension cheque came in, she would come downstairs, hold up that cheque and say, “The NDP fought for this.” I used to think my grandmother was a little crazy. I would say, “Nanny, there has always been a pension.” She would say, “No, there wasn't always a pension. People fought for that pension.”

My grandfather, Charlie Angus, worked 38 years at the largest gold mine in North America. Those men had no pensions because it was expected that they were going to die young. They were going to die from silicosis, emphysema or heart failure in their early forties. That is what happened to all the immigrant miners. They were going die in a run of muck or a rock blast. They did not have to worry about pensions. However, if they lived long enough, they were stuck. Charlie Angus went to work and died on the shop floor at the Hollinger mine when he was 68 years old. The miners worked until they died. That was the way it was when I was born.

Sixty-eight years old. I was thinking about what a different world that was, when my grandfather had to be at the mine at 68. Just a few months ago, at a Tim Hortons in Timmins, a guy came up to me and said, “I can't live on my CPP. I worked my whole life as a contract miner. I'm going back underground.” I said, “How old are you, sir?” He said, “I'm 68 years old.”

The pension crisis that exists in our country is not this fabricated crisis that the Prime Minister told the millionaires about in Davos. The pension crisis in this country is that we have a system that works but that citizens are not able to pay enough into it. The CPP is an excellent, well funded system. It is the simplest and the lowest cost. It guarantees people the chance to retire in dignity. So, in my riding 68-year-olds would not have to go back to work.

When the Prime Minister spoke to millionaires in Switzerland, the message he delivered to them was that our senior citizens are living too high off the hog. He did not have the guts to come back to tell senior citizens in this country what he was going to do.

We have been trying to get a straight answer from this attack on old age security. Old age security represents the poorest people. It delivers the most basic pension. Pension plans are built over 30 years. Over the last 30 years, we have had maybe 15 years of Liberal and 15 years of Conservative governments. Did they not see the demographic crisis that now, suddenly, the Prime Minister has become aware of? Did they not see that these senior citizens were getting too much? We are trying to get an answer as to how this could be.

The human resources minister said today that we have to worry about future invasions of our country. Is this conspiracy stuff? It has been 150 years since the Fenians came over the border at Buffalo and fired off a few muskets. Are the Conservatives saying that our senior citizens should not be getting old age security because the human resources minister is worried about future invasions?

The Prime Minister has floated the trial balloon and has now gone to ground. He sent out my favourite conspiracy theorist, the Ron Paul guy, the parliamentary secretary, who told us today that one of the companies that is behind the Keystone development has money in pensions. If we increase pensions it is going to cost that company money; he considers this another attack by the NDP on the Keystone pipeline. I was thinking, is this crackpot bizarre republicanism or is this just the normal course for the Conservatives?

Is this man anywhere close to reality? I do not think he has ever had a real job. He has always lived within this Conservative attack bubble. However, my people back home do have real jobs.

I hear Conservative backbenchers saying that the problem with RRSPs is that people have unused capacity. I was a contract worker. I raised three children on various jobs. I was never able to save enough money for RRSPs so my capacity was “taken up”. When people go from contract to contract, which goes for most in my generation, in between the contracts they use up their savings. That is the reality. I am now 50 years old. I am almost there, but people can see from my grey hair that I am older than a lot of the demographic. In my generation, people have not paid into a pension plan. They have been trying to save in RRSPs.

Now people are being told the government is going to change the name of the RRSP and the best thing is, the employer might contribute. It is not that the employer will contribute. The government will just change the name. If RRSPs worked, it would be sufficient, but they have not worked. I am sure my colleagues have friends with private sector savings who, like many of my friends, lost 40% of the value of those savings in 2008 when the recession hit. We are possibly going into years of negative real growth. Yet we are being told to tell people to put more money into the RRSP system and that the system will deal with it.

Meanwhile, we have a system that works. We have the CPP. When talking to pension experts, the one thing they say is that the CPP works and we should allow workers to contribute more to the CPP. That is a reasonable solution. However, that is a public solution. The government does not believe in the things that have made this country work. We put our resources together and created a public pension plan that is sustainable and doable. CPP has protected Canadians for 40 years. Pension experts say that is where we need to go, but that is where the government does not want to go.

What have the Conservatives done? They have come up with this glorified RRSP program, but they do not want to debate it. They do not want Canadians to hear about it. It is our job as members of Parliament to stand in the House and represent the concerns of our people. The Conservatives do not seem to like it; it might bother the attack message crew around the Prime Minister. However, that is the parliamentary Westminster tradition. Canadians can hear the debates and judge whether they make sense. Yet forcing through a fundamental change on pensions within 24 hours of introducing this bill would be denying Canadians a perspective on a bill that is going to affect their future.

I would say that the Conservatives know this plan does not hold water. They know Canadians are not stupid and are concerned about their future. When I go back to Timmins—James Bay, I hear more and more about financial insecurity. People do not have what they need. These are people who have done it right, but despite having been careful their whole lives, it is just not there for them. We have a chance to fix this for the next generation, but instead we are seeing a destabilization of old age security. We are seeing an attempt to create this supposed private solution where nobody really has to contribute, nobody really has to participate. It is there to help people add to their savings.

CPP has lots of unused capacity, if we are going to use Conservative terms. In fact, if we compare with the United States, the senior benefit there is $30,000 per year while the maximum in Canada is $12,000. People cannot live on $12,000 a year. They cannot pay their rent on $12,000 a year. Even if we add old age security to that, which is a maximum of less than $7,000 a year, it is still far below. We already have a system that works. It is low cost. It does not create any hassle for the employers because the contribution is already being deducted.

If we allow working people and the self-employed, the contract workers, to make contributions to the CPP, a publicly pooled pension plan, there will be the level of security that a previous generation of Parliament sought for this generation. It will continue to the next generation. However, if we continue to shut down the ability of Parliament to do its work, we are going to get shoddy work. That is what we are seeing from the government.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there are stories across the country of how our parents' generation had to work hard without any notion of a pension.

I want to mention something. I hope the hon. member will not mind. The hon. member for York Centre made the same error. I would like to remind us all that we in this Parliament are the Government of Canada. The Prime Minister and the cabinet are Privy Council members, but as a Parliament we are the government. We too often refer to Conservative Party members, whose membership makes up all of Privy Council, as though they are the whole of government. We here as opposition members are also government.

In the view of the hon. member and in the view of the Conservative Party members, would Bill C-25 work for the mobility of workers? About half of Canadian workers have had five or more employers since they started working. Would this plan be viable when the contributions from employers are voluntary and when workers are so mobile?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member makes an excellent point. The new reality of working is that people move from job to job. The days of private pensions have been pretty much deep-sixed. However, people can bring CPP contributions with them.

I do not see anything in this bill that is different from RRSPs except the claim that employers can contribute. If employers really wanted workers to stay, they would say, “Hey, come work for me and I will contribute to your RRSP.” That is not going to happen.

We have a system that works, that is mobile and that people can take with them. Then we have this chimera that is being held out there. The government is trying to push it through as quickly as possible because my dear colleagues in the Conservative Party could not go home and sell this to their people.