Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to speak to Bill C-25, An Act relating to pooled registered pension plans and making related amendments to other Acts.
At first glance, this measure seems to be a good one. However, it turns out to be a half measure when we take a closer look. That is exactly what was done by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance and even more so by the NDP in the House. This bill really has holes and problems. It has to be studied in its entirety, and we must figure out why the government has introduced this bill.
In Bill C-38 , the Conservatives attack seniors. That is clear. Just look at the provisions concerning the old age security program and the guaranteed income supplement.
The government has decided to increase the retirement age from 65 to 67 without providing any explanation. We posed questions to the Minister of Finance at the Standing Committee on Finance. The opposition was very insistent and, in the end, the government admitted that the savings would amount to $10.8 billion in 2030. The government is therefore balancing its budget at the expense of seniors and future generations, and that is a problem. We must understand where the government is coming from when we study this bill.
One of the first things that is obvious about the RPPP is that this product is very similar to an existing product, the RRSP.
In fact, RPPPs are more comparable to RRSPs—because they are administered by banks and financial institutions that will invest the money in the markets—than to a pension plan for seniors or future retirees.
On the weekend, one of my constituents told me that when he was younger, people talked about retiring at 55. They believed that if they invested as much as their advisor told them to into a retirement plan or their RRSP, they would be able to retire at 55, no problem. Today, that constituent is still working even though he is over 55 because these retirement investment products fluctuate with the market and the market has been turbulent lately. The investor's retirement income depends on the market.
What we are talking about today is exactly the same thing. It seems like the government has learned nothing from past mistakes and is doomed to repeat them. It claims it is introducing a product for the people who need it. Obviously everyone wants to have a stable and guaranteed retirement. However, this product does not offer such guarantees.
I would say it is like an RRSP because the employee is told to invest in this plan, but the employer is in no way forced to contribute to it. Therefore it is the employee who assumes all the risk. Of course, the employer might contribute, but that depends on his goodwill.
The government currently has tools such as the Canada pension plan and, in Quebec, the Quebec pension plan. These are solid plans.
No one across the way can deny that the Canada pension plan works, that it is well run and ensures a good retirement for those who are lucky enough to benefit from it: workers, self-employed workers, and people in the public and private sectors.
This plan exists and that is why we are saying that instead of creating a product that is similar to RRSPs or TFSAs, which we already have, the government should be investing in a plan that works. According to witnesses at the Standing Committee on Finance, the cost-benefit ratio for taxpayers is very high. It costs less to administer the CPP than to create a new product.
One problem is that this product is administered by financial institutions that want to generate profits. We know this; it is normal. At whose expense are these financial institutions going to make their profits? At the expense of those who have invested in this product. In this case, there is no guarantee. We talked about the fact that regulations might be brought in to ensure that the fees are not too high. However, there can be no guarantee that those fees will not go up over time. And when those fees go up, who loses? Who will have less money in the end? The people who paid in will lose. In this case, it will mainly be employees.
Rather than helping employees and people who are going to retire, the government is helping financial institutions, which, clearly, are already at an advantage thanks to the choices this government has made with previous budgets and the most recent budget. All the government is doing is continuing to reduce their tax rate so they can generate more profits. However, those profits do not go back to the common people. They do not go to those who want to retire with dignity and prepare for their future. Once again, clearly, this government does not have the best interests of seniors at heart.
My colleague from Thunder Bay—Rainy River introduced a bill to protect pension plans in case of bankruptcy. During the last election campaign, I met people. One person came to see me to say that we had come up with a very good idea, something that would protect them. He had spent a good part of his life working for Nortel, investing, working hard and keeping the economy going. Money was invested in his pension for the future. He was promised that he would be protected when he retired. We all know what happened in the end. Nortel went bankrupt. Because pensions were not protected, he is now living in misery. That is what he told me. This man's plight touched me deeply. He had tears in his eyes when he said that he had worked, he had invested, he had done everything he was expected to do, and yet the government failed to protect him.
What I find so difficult to understand is why the government does not really want to protect seniors, the people who truly helped build this country, who worked very hard. Thanks to these people, Canada has made progress in terms of the economy and quality of life. The government should be thanking them and telling them that they have worked hard, but what is it doing instead? It is giving them the cold shoulder. Not only that, but it is also attacking them. They worked hard and set money aside, but the government does not even want to protect them. What a shame to see that kind of attitude from the government.
As I said, that is what we are seeing in the budget, in Bill C-38. All of that and various changes have resulted in a record gap between rich and poor. That gap has been growing steadily since the Second World War. Of course, former Liberal governments have to take some of the blame, but so does the Conservative government.
The Conservative government is aware of the situation. The Conference Board of Canada and the OECD are saying it. The facts are there. The gap between the rich and poor is growing wider and wider, particularly in Canada, where it is growing more rapidly than in the United States. Imagine that. The United States has always seemed to be the prime example when it comes to this gap. Of the industrialized countries, Canada has surpassed the United States and other countries in how fast this gap is widening. It is because of measures like the budget and this bill that we are seeing these differences. Why? It is because the government is not helping those who need it most.
When we talk about old age security and the guaranteed income supplement, we are talking about people— seniors who are living on the edge of poverty. This government's solution is to tell them to work two years longer—to increase the age of retirement from 65 to 67—and that things might be better for them later. This is a completely ideological way of doing things. As the OECD said, there is no problem; this is purely a government decision.