Mr. Speaker, talking about pensions with this government is reminiscent of the story about the grasshopper and the ant. They are the grasshoppers and we are the ants.
They clearly do not realize that the money saved through a pension plan is not a tax, but a guarantee for people to stave off poverty in retirement.
The Conservatives give money without rhyme or reason to their friends and have a party. They dance and sing using other people's money. Once the recession hits, they give the bill to the ant. The worst part is that the grasshoppers are telling the ants to let them manage their assets. Wow. That is promising. They are hoping that people will accept that. Well, no. It does not work like that.
It is unbelievable that someone who claims to be the Minister of State for Finance is incapable of understanding that savings are not taxes, but investments. The minister is incapable of understanding that.
Mr. Speaker, I must tell you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Newton—North Delta, who is also a very good friend of mine. I apologize for letting it slip my mind.
Protecting the savings already made is also crucial. Right now, the future is bleak for Canadians. Their retirement savings are at risk. Pension plans are going bankrupt. I did not hear the Minister of State for Finance talk about Nortel, Air Canada or all his friends who suspended pension contributions in the past and poorly invested their retirees' money. They are saying that they are not responsible or to blame, and they are asking workers who saved all their lives to agree to losing half of their money.
Clearly, when we listen to the speech by the Minister of State for Finance, we understand very well that his decision is to protect and favour his friends, not Canadians. He will have nothing to worry about when he retires because he will have a comprehensive pension plan and his friends will appoint him to the boards of oil companies. However, the vast majority of Canadian workers do not prostitute themselves like that.
How can the government say that the savings generated by enhancing the CPP will not be invested back into the economy?
When people set money aside for savings, they invest it and hope it will generate interest. That is the whole point of saving. If that money is going to earn interest, it has to be invested in Canadian industries and services. That money comes right out of the pockets of all taxpayers to support immediate investment that will produce returns in order to improve people's quality of life and protect them from poverty in retirement.
Not so long ago, people who worked for Nortel and Air Canada lost 40% of their pension. The government is always asking people who save money, who have set it aside, to make sacrifices, yet it absolutely does not want employers to have to take any responsibility in this matter.
The Conservatives put forward a voluntary pension plan. They say their goal is not to take money away. Well, it is the same thing. Savings are savings. They say that workers should be solely responsible for their savings, that the employer should not have to pay and that it will ask pension fund managers for investments or partnerships.
When it is a matter of using workers' money, they have no problem with that, but when it is time for them to do what they should be doing, they tell Canadians that they are not responsible, which is about as much as we can expect from our Minister of State for Finance.
There is one important thing he does not understand. He says that this would be an economic disaster. That makes me think of the dopes in the 1900s who said that women should not have the right to vote because that would turn them into alcoholics or make them hysterical. The Conservatives keep handing us the same old lines—clearly they have put as much thought into this as usual—saying that there will be job losses, the economy will stagnate, and everything will fail spectacularly. They have no proof of that at all. When we ask them to share their analyses with us, they have nothing to offer. It takes some nerve to attack a pension plan based on the delusions and fertile imaginations of people who have nothing else to go on, certainly not competence.
Here is something I need to tell the people across the way, because clearly, they do not know it: once the proposed reform is voted in, it will take three years to implement, and contributions will ramp up over a period of seven years. That means the increase will be spread out over 10 years. The Conservatives have told us to our faces that in 10 years, under their good government, we will still be in a slump. If that is good economic management, I am sorry, but we will do everything we can to get rid of it as soon as possible. Such an open declaration of incompetence is rare.
The Canada pension plan is currently the most secure pension plan. People who put their money into it are certain to get it back. It is not like an RRSP. When you put money into an RRSP, you are investing in venture capital. You risk earning a negative return. This has happened to many people, particularly in 2008. They had less money in their pensions than what they invested.
It is also important to understand that the financial institutions that manage RRSPs factor in a profit rate for themselves. Then, they charge administrative fees. After that, they sometimes have the audacity to give themselves a performance bonus. When things go a bit better than average, they give themselves bonuses and when things go worse than average, they still give themselves bonuses, claiming that it would have been worse had they not been there. In short, investors are the last ones to get paid. Everyone gets paid before them. RRSPs are therefore not the best option.
The CPP is different. First, it provides a return. In order for it to be cost-effective, that return must be about 3%. In addition to that, the CPP has the lowest administrative fees. No financial institution in Canada charges such low fees for that kind of return. I challenge the Conservatives to find evidence to the contrary. We are asking them for proof, not stories, imaginings or idle talk.
The government is not protecting Canadians' right to an effective pension system and that is unfortunate. We are dealing with people who have given up on the role of the Canadian government. The Conservatives are saying that it is not their fault if Canadians end up living in poverty as a result of their governance. It is as though the grasshopper started managing the ants' inheritance. When the grasshopper has spent all the ants' money on its friends, parties and risky investments—when it has wasted all the ants' money—it will have the nerve to tell the ants to tighten their belts.
At some point, the ants have the right to insist that their government act like their government, rather than like the government of its own cronies, senators and everyone but Canadians.