Mr. Speaker, my colleague's question is similar to the question I asked the minister, who had promised that he would provide evidence of his job estimates to the press and yet failed to do so, and he did not answer the question.
The short answer is that the minister has not provided a scintilla of evidence, because he has not provided the evidence he committed to provide.
I think it is a question of degree. The bigger the increase in the CPP benefits and premiums, the bigger the effect on hard-pressed Canadian households and companies that have to pay more premiums. However, the provinces are talking about implementation over five years, starting in 2016. Those increases are very moderate, but they have not been agreed to yet. I think increases on that scale are quite likely to be manageable.
I also believe that sometimes the government forgets that the pension increases involve increased benefits as well as increased payments. Therefore, there is a benefit to the economy of the increased payments as well as a cost to the economy of the increased payments. Once we include both of those components, the net effect on these things might be quite negligible, if not totally unimportant.