Mr. Speaker, thank you for this opportunity. It is a great honour to speak to initiatives that are very close to a lot of our hearts. I know it is close to mine. We are talking about the proposed changes in Bill C-26.
I think it should be noted again that these changes will not take full effect until 40 years have passed and will take money out of the paycheques of hard-working Canadians and put thousands of jobs at risk.
It needs to be re-stated that these changes will not provide relief to our seniors. If we want to give relief to our seniors we could start with the high cost of electricity in the province of Ontario and the failed policies that have resulted in those things. Those are the real issues that are causing poverty among our seniors today.
We are going in a little different direction. I have not heard this said yet, so I will talk about someone else the bill will hurt. We know it will hurt employers. Employers are the ones that do the hiring. They are the ones who make those higher CPP payments. It will hurt employees, because they will no longer be employed. They will not get those job opportunities. The one group of people who will really hurt the worst is the poor. I have not heard that discussed by the opposite side, and surprisingly by the other party on the left.
What about the poor? The poor are the ones who need jobs. We talk so much about how we need to help the poor today, but if we want to help a poor man or a poor woman, give them a job. This particular legislation puts a death knell to that.
We have a good organization in my riding of Chatham-Kent—Leamington, the Chatham-Kent Workforce Planning Board. We had a meeting with them. They are involved in job creation and are doing their part. We heard some encouraging statistics, because the rate of unemployment is dropping in Chatham-Kent—Leamington.
In a former life I had a business. I was a car dealer. I got to work for who I think is probably the smartest guy I have ever met in the car business. He is an actuary. He was a graduate of the University of Toronto. He used to tell me that it is all in the numbers and that I should check the numbers. Subsequently, I have kind of been a number miner.
When I looked at the Chatham-Kent workforce statistics, they showed first of all that we had the large employers and the small and medium-sized businesses. There were some really discouraging statistics. First, we have only two employers who employ over 500 people in the riding of Chatham-Kent—Leamington. The other group is shrinking too.
However, we all know who does the hiring. It is small business. There was a group of businesses with zero to 100 employees. Which group was the largest? Let me just clarify this so members can understand my question. Of that group of businesses that employ from zero to 100 people, which segment was the largest hiring group? I have asked this question of a number of people and we get some varying answers. Some went as low as three employees. Do members know what it is? It is the segment with zero employees.
I was shocked when I saw those numbers, but I am not that shocked when I see legislation like this, because an employer will hire someone when he does a good job. If an individual is a finishing carpenter and the demand is such that the business is getting more work and it makes sense to hire another employee, then they have a whole lot more managing to do, but they will pay that employee what he is worth.
Oftentimes, those people who are at the entry level do not have that value yet. Members can check the statistics for themselves. It is shocking to see that more and more people are doing it on their own. They are not going out and hiring. Who does that affect? It affects the poor, the disenfranchised, the ones we often call the generational poor. It is generational poverty.
My wife and I love parades. When we go down King Street and get into the east end in our home town of Chatham, we get the marginalized people. These people oftentimes do not have the privileges we have. Life is a bit tougher. A lot of them do not have jobs or have not had jobs for a long time. It is those people who will be affected. It is those people who will not be hired. The sad thing is that this continues on generationally.
If the cost of hiring an employee was such that it made sense for that carpenter, plumber, electrician, or whoever to hire, they would. The economy is growing, but the problem is that we put these restrictions on people and we do not realize who it is hurting.
We hear so much in the House about the middle class. I am part of the middle class too. However, we should be talking about the poor. The poor do not necessarily vote for me. However, we should be talking about those people. They are the people who have no voice. Those are the people who look for jobs and cannot find them, or just give up. If we talked about those people, if we have a heart for the people who do not necessarily have a chance, I think we would be talking about something else when it comes to CPP.
I have an idea. Let us have a universal pension plan. I have talked about this with a number of people. We have universal health care. Imagine talking to our neighbours or other people in our home towns who need knee replacements. However, because they do not have a universal pension plan, it will be two years until they can get their knee fixed. However, for us, it would be two weeks. We do the same thing in our pensions. If we really wanted to make change and affect the economy, we should talk about a universal pension plan.
Years ago I had the privilege of working on the finance committee and I got to know a man by the name of Bill Tufts. He is involved in an organization called Fair Pensions for All. Bill and I talked about what would happen if we took all the CPP, OAS, GIS contributions and all of the government's contributions to pension plans, threw it in a big pot, and divided it among all the people who were retired. Every woman and man in our country would get $24,000 when they retired. There is a real solution. If we really wanted to help the poor, if we really wanted to make some changes, there is a universal pension plan right there.
I know that might be a pipe dream, but I am concerned that this legislation would further exacerbate the hiring abilities of employers today. Although that is tough and although it is going to make it rough on employers, it is especially going to make it rough on the poor.
I fear that for the coming generation, more and more it will be impossible for us to hire those who need the jobs, those who will move from their poor status to a higher status, to the middle class, the one we all talk about so much in the House.
I hope members on the other side, because ultimately this will go vote, will consider the damage this will do to our economy, the damage it will do to that group, and ask their government to make the changes and not let the bill before us pass.