Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his kind remarks at the outset of his question. From one Blue Jays fan to another, I suppose we will always have some areas of agreement as well as some of disagreement.
My answer to that would be to ask what life his children or my children or grandchildren will have if they do not have jobs. Many small business people have told me that the CPP expansion, even though the government suggests that it is a modest increase, would have an incredibly detrimental effect on their ability to hire more employees.
In fact, when we were on a tour across Canada just recently, we happened to be in Thunder Bay. I went to a restaurant for dinner with one of my colleagues. The restaurant owner, once finding out that I was a member of Parliament, started to engage me in conversation about what the expansion of the CPP premiums would mean to his business. He told my colleague and I, very clearly, that the profit margin was so skinny that with the CPP expansion, he would either have to close his doors or lay off employees. What kind of retirement would he have? What kind of retirement would his employees who might be laid off have?
There are other ways to help Canadians who need assistance plan for retirement. We expanded the GIS. The GIS is targeted to the lowest-income Canadians in this great nation of ours. We expanded it. I believe the Liberal government, to its credit, increased it by about 10%. Things can be done without increasing a job-killing tax, which Bill C-26 most surely is.