Mr. Speaker, certainly in the spirit that we have had in this place with regard to debate and validity of debate, I respect my colleague making the comment on the front end of his speech when he said we really should be having a debate about whether we should increase CPP premiums now. In the spirit of that statement, I have some questions that I would love for him to address.
What is the size of premium increase that he would anticipate in terms of being necessary to support this proposal? What would the size of the workforce need to be to support this proposal down the road in terms of sustainability? What assumptions were made to assert the NDP's claim that this would not have an impact on job sustainability? When the cost of a premium like this is increased to employers, that is obviously going to be a factor in their cash flow analysis and long-term business planning.
I would love to hear some details, some actual economic model information, on why this is a good proposal. Convince us that increasing CPP premiums right now is something that is sustainable in the long term and is not going to hurt job creation. All I have heard today is this is bad, that is good. If we are really talking about increasing the standard of debate in this place, we should be talking about these things.
I would love to hear some actual economic facts with regard to the NDP's proposal.