Mr. Speaker, tomorrow will mark the 50th anniversary of the Canada pension plan, which, along with the Quebec pension plan, was created to ensure that all working Canadians had the opportunity to retire with dignity. It sounds like common sense today, but at the time it took extraordinary vision, diplomacy, and the persistence of Prime Minister Lester Pearson to get it done.
However, in the 1990s the plan's future was in doubt, and major renovations were required to save it. Former finance minister Paul Martin Jr. built the business case, the social consensus, and the national momentum to rejuvenate the plan. As a footnote, the plan received strong support across Canada, except for the provincial NDP governments in B.C. and Saskatchewan, and our current Prime Minister and his federal Reform Party voted against it as well.
The CPP was a historic accomplishment. However, retirement income insecurity is a growing fact of life for far too many Canadians. All this is to say that Canada is once again in need of a government that will honour Lester Pearson's ambition to ensure a fair, efficient, and adequate system of retirement income for all Canadians.