Lorne Nystrom

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 23rd, 2001]

But not for the Alliance, not for the reformers. They are advocating a flat tax whereby a wealthy person would pay the same tax rate as somebody who is teaching in an elementary school in Halifax or working on the assembly line in Oshawa or in a grocery store in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

I ask you, Mr. Speaker, if that is fair, if that is just. That is what the Alliance Party in Canada is advocating, even flattening it more, giving the wealthier a bigger break, giving the rich a bigger break and putting a heavier load on the ordinary people. Basically and fundamentally it wants to cut back on the role of government, just cut back and cut back on the role of government. The Alliance says it wants to reduce the role of government in our society to the lowest common denominator. I do not think that is the way to go.

We need a more progressive individual tax system and a gradual elimination of the GST, which is regressive because in a way it is a flat tax. On the other side, we have to fill some of the loopholes in the current taxation system that are there for some of the wealthy and some of the big corporations in Canada. Finally, we have to readjust our corporate tax rate in Canada so that the large corporations pay more of their fair share. A number of years ago the large corporations paid a lot more in taxes than they do today. Today individuals are paying more and corporations are paying less. It used to be the other way in the days of Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau and even in the first part of the Mulroney years when all this started to change.

The sad thing about it is that when the Liberal Party took over, instead of making a more progressive taxation system in terms of our society, it got spooked into a more reactionary and conservative taxation system because the Liberals feared the Reform Party. The Liberals feared the agenda of the Reform Party, now the Alliance. This Liberal Party made a sharp turn to the right. It is the most right wing, conservative Liberal Party we have seen in the history of our country and that is why we have to make a change.

With a fair taxation system we can give people the freedom to have more equality of condition. With a fair taxation system we can still raise a lot of government revenues for social programs, for education, health, research and development, social housing and the farm crisis. If we had a fair taxation system we could accomplish all these things for the common good.

One way to start is to make sure we gradually eliminate the GST. We could take the first steps in that direction by taking the GST off reading materials and some of the other basic necessities. That would help ordinary citizens of the country.

I will close with that and say that I hope to see Liberal colleagues getting up and telling me they are embarrassed that their party broke its promise in 1993, when the candidate from Peterborough, for example, was out there for the party that promised to get rid of the GST. I would like to see him get up in the House of Commons now and explain why his party broke that promise and why he hangs his head in the House of Commons whenever this issue comes up. His party has broken a basic and fundamental promise to the people of the country.

It is like medicare. I am told that way back in 1919 the Liberal Party promised health care for Canada. It promised medicare in 1919. That did not happen until about 1966 and it only happened at that time because of the leadership of the CCF of Saskatchewan, where the first health care system in Canada became such a popular idea that in 1966 the Pearson government brought it in. That took an awful long time. It took 47 years to keep that promise. How long will it be before the Liberal Party keeps its promise on the GST?

I end with that question and I hope some of those members have the courage to get up and tell us why they have broken faith and why they have broken this engagement with the people of Canada.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 23rd, 2001]

Yes, there is the whole case of operation loophole, the court case that was launched in Manitoba by someone in the city of Winnipeg going after the Bronfman family and the wealthy people for the taxes they evade by moving their wealth offshore. That is not fair. When a person does that the ordinary person has to pick up the can and put more money into the taxation system.

What we have to do is have a more progressive taxation system. Many years ago we had seven or eight tax brackets in Canada. The Mulroney government reduced that to three. In the last budget we had a fourth tax bracket added, which is a very minor step in the right direction. Also, the tax rate for middle income people in the country is gradually going down from 26% to 23% so we will have a taxation system that is a bit more graduated, except that the highest tax bracket still remains at 29%, I think. In the United States the highest tax bracket goes up to 45% or 50% for extremely wealthy people.

Even in the United States there is a more progressive taxation system than we have in this country, and the United States is the world's bastion of so-called capitalism, where they talk about making life as easy as possible for investors and people with a lot of money and a lot of wealth. Even in the United States there is a more progressive taxation system on the individual income tax side. We have to get back to that in Canada.

I see the Alliance across the way. The people of Canada should be aware that the Alliance Party is pushing a single flat tax system in the country. It is a single rate, a flat tax. That is the most regressive tax of all that we could have. Even the Republicans in the United States have dropped the idea of a flat tax. George Bush and the Republicans think it is too regressive for the Republicans in the United States.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 23rd, 2001]

As the member from Winnipeg says, I remember the debates in the House of Commons in 1993 when members of the Liberal Party got up and said “elect us and we will get rid of the GST”. I remember the Prime Minister saying that if he was elected Prime Minister he would get rid of the GST. That is on tape and can be seen by looking up the old speeches from question period in 1992-93. I ask the Liberals across the way what happened to that fundamental promise they made to the Canadian people. What happened? The Liberal member across the way is clearing his throat in embarrassment. What happened to that campaign promise the Liberals made to the Canadian people in 1993?

No wonder people are cynical about the electoral process, politicians and political parties when a political party can make a very serious promise to the country and then break that promise. In hindsight, the only member across the way who did not break the promise was the minister of heritage, the member for Hamilton East. She was deputy prime minister. She resigned her seat in the House of Commons, probably in 1996, and went back to Hamilton East for a byelection. She said she had made a commitment on the GST, the government had changed its mind and she sought a new mandate for herself as the member of parliament for Hamilton East.

What about the rest of those members? They made the promise, they broke the promise and they are still in government. That is one reason why more and more people in the country give up on the political process and rank politicians so low in terms of credibility. The goal has to be to gradually eliminate the GST in order to make it a more progressive taxation system.

People are in the final process of filing their income tax, with the deadline being April 30, which is only a few days away. When Canadians file their income taxes they are reminded that too much of the taxation burden in Canada is still on low income and modest income people in Canada. These are people who have families and are struggling to make ends meet. I hear stories day in and day out about low income people having trouble with the taxes they have to pay.

Yet there are so many loopholes in our taxation system. We have the family trusts for the Bronfmans and the wealthy, and they can really get away from paying taxes, from paying their fair share. These very wealthy people, the billionaires, do not pay their fair share and we have the Liberals across the way who will not do anything about this.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 23rd, 2001]

Home heating fuel is a very good example as well. With the price of energy going up, particularly the price of natural gas, a lot of ordinary folks who are on a very tight budget or on a fixed income have real difficulty paying the 7% on a home heating bill that may have been $75 or $80 a few years ago and is today maybe $150 or $250, depending on where one lives. The GST adds an awful lot in costs for the ordinary consumer who is paying the heating bill.

I think a measure of a society is to have a taxation system based on the ability to pay. That is the most important part of this. It should be based on ability to pay. Our party, the NDP, realizes, of course, that there should be a very important role in our society for government. In the last few years the role of government has diminished too much in terms of deregulation, privatization and cutbacks to social programs. Health funding is the best example of that. We have a health funding crisis in the country. The federal government cut back by billions of dollars transfers to the provinces for health care. The member for Winnipeg North Centre, who is our critic, knows the cost of that to ordinary people across the country.

We do need taxation revenue coming in, but the principle is to find the money on the basis of the ability to pay. The taxation system in the country should become more progressive, not less progressive. To do that I think we eventually have to phase out the GST, to roll it back from 7% to 6% to 5% and to 4%. Eventually, when we have a fair taxation system and the economy grows and becomes stronger, we have to eliminate it altogether. Our party said that in 1991-92. That is what we said in the last campaign. That is what we say now. The goal is to eliminate the GST in the country in order to have a fairer taxation system.

[Sales Tax And Excise Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 23rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I had the honour to represent Yorkton—Melville in the House for 25 years. I understand why you said Yorkton—Melville. I want to say a few words on the changes to the GST, which the bill before the House implement.

I remember the great debate in the House of Commons when the GST went through. I believe it was in 1991. There was a great debate about changing our taxation system. We used to have what was called a manufacturers' sales tax. The government of the day, the Mulroney Conservative government, decided to replace that tax with the goods and services tax.

We had a great debate in the finance committee. I was a member of the finance committee at the time as the NDP finance critic. We studied the issue ad nauseam. We had hearings on it. I remember spending several days writing a report on it with members of the finance committee. We made recommendations. There were all kinds of changes made at the time to the initial proposal of the government. The GST came in and the old manufacturers' sales tax disappeared. At the time we voiced a lot of concerns about the GST itself.

First, the problem with the GST is that it is a tax that the government likes. It takes in a lot of money, I believe $23 million to $24 million. Every point in the GST brings in roughly $3.5 million of revenue.

Another problem with the GST is that it is all encompassing and taxes things like funerals. It taxes reading materials, books and a whole series of things that are necessities of life at the same level it taxes things that are not necessities or things that might be purchased for entertainment, luxury goods and things of that sort.

Another thing is that the GST is a very regressive tax. It does not matter what our income is, we still pay the same GST. We pay 7% for a haircut. Whether we are rich or poor, we still pay that same 7%. When we buy clothes we pay 7%. It is a very regressive tax in terms of having a fair and balanced tax system.

I have always believed that in a democratic society that looks after the common good we should pay taxes based on the ability to pay. If we make more money we should pay more in tax. The tax rate for those making $100,000 should be higher than it should be for someone making $30,000, $40,000, $20,000 or $25,000 a year. For those making a million dollars a year the tax rate should be higher still. There has to be a progressive taxation system in the country. The problem with the GST is that it is not progressive. It hits everybody in the same way in terms of paying the same rate of tax on the same goods and commodities.

If we look around we see many necessities on which people pay GST. I mentioned haircuts, all kinds of clothing and a lot of the necessities of life on which we pay GST.

[Canada Elections Act, April 5th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I want to say a few words in support of the motion put forward by the member from the Bloc Quebecois. It is really to remove the veto from the Senate in terms of legislation we are debating today concerning the Elections Act of Canada.

I suppose the most perverse power we could give the Senate is a veto over election laws because its members are unelected. Why the government would insist on doing that is beyond me.

Members of the Senate of Canada are appointed. The Senate is not democratic and its members are not elected nor accountable. Its members do not have constituencies. They do not face voters and they do not get swayed by public opinion. However the Senate does have veto power in terms of changing the electoral law of the country for those of us who are elected, who have constituencies and who go back to our ridings and face our electorate time and again.

That is a very perverse type of democracy if one were to define what democracy is. I therefore certainly support the Bloc Quebecois in terms of the amendment before the House today.

The Senate issue has been around for a long time. My recollection of history is that when the country was founded every province had an upper house and a lower house, whether it was Ontario or Quebec, the Atlantic provinces, Prince Edward Island and so on. I think even Manitoba had that. I think six or seven of the provinces had upper and lower houses. One by one their upper houses were abolished. I think Quebec was the last one to abolish the upper house.

It was in 1968. The Quebec Legislative Council, Quebec's senate, was abolished. It was the red chamber and it was abolished in the province of Quebec. The same thing happened in every Canadian province where there was a second chamber. It was abolished because Canadian provinces did not need two chambers.

However we have an anachronism in the House of Commons. About an hour ago, while speaking at a public policy forum here in the city, one of the questions that came up was that of the Senate.

We now have an unelected Senate. All the polls I have seen show that about 5% of the people support the Senate and yet the government across the way does nothing about it. There is a debate in the country whether or not we should reform the Senate, elect it or abolish it.

Over the years many attempts have been made to change the Senate, to elect the Senate. I remember back in 1991-92, right before Charlottetown, when there were committees of the House of Commons, the Beaudoin-Edwards and the Beaudoin—Dobbie committees. The most difficult issue we had to face was what to do with the Senate. That was the very last issue with which we dealt.

At the end of the day the three parties of the House of Commons came to an agreement about reducing the powers of the Senate, ensuring it had equal representation, not from each province but from the five regions of the country. We had the Atlantic, Ontario, Quebec, the prairies and British Columbia, along with the north. It would have given each of the five regions in the country 20% of the seats in the Senate.

Then we all agreed, which was difficult for some New Democrats, but I was the party spokesman at the time, to elect the Senate and to elect it entirely by proportional representation. That was a three party agreement.

I see a great Liberal Party enthusiast from Hamilton cringing in his seat, but that is the record of the House. If he goes back to the Library of Parliament he would see where his party stood. His spokesperson then was André Ouellet, the former minister of external affairs from Papineau who is now the chairman of Canada Post. The Liberal Party, led by the present Prime Minister, endorsed the idea of an elected Senate by PR, with reduced powers and equal representation, not from each province but from the five regions.

What happened to that unanimous proposal of parliament was that it went to that great Canadian institution, which is also a little bit undemocratic, called the first ministers' conference. The first ministers, Prime Minister Mulroney and the premiers, took only a few minutes before they rejected the idea proposed by the House of Commons and came up with the proposal in the Charlottetown accord which was still an appointed Senate with reduced powers and an increase in the number of seats in the House of Commons. It was a convoluted dog's breakfast that was turned down by the people of the country.

Once again we are back in the same place. During Meech, as well, there was an attempt made around that time to change the Senate. I think at that time there was a proposition that the Prime Minister would appoint senators from a list provided to the Prime Minister by each of the provinces. That actually did not make it into the Meech Lake accord but it was one of the proposals at the time.

There have been all kinds of different proposals on the Senate. The triple-e movement, which was spawned in part in western Canada, requires that every province have an equal number of senators. We would have a powerful House of Commons and a powerful Senate and the two would balance each other off.

That never got off the ground and never will because Ontario and Quebec with their population and their power cannot agree, will not agree and have never agreed to an equal Senate where Prince Edward Island has the same power as Ontario and where New Brunswick has the same power as Quebec, if indeed the Senate has any powers at all. If the Senate does not have any powers, why even have a Senate if it is just to become a debating chamber?

There have been all kinds of attempts to reform and change the Senate. Another idea pushed by the Alliance and the Reform Party is to start on an ad hoc basis electing senators one by one. I think that would be a great mistake. If we start electing senators one by one at the present time, we would empower these people. We would enshrine in perpetuity the present extremely unfair representation in the Senate where British Columbia with around three million people would have six senators and New Brunswick with 500,000 or 600,000 people would have ten.

It would also enshrine the existing powers which are almost as strong as the powers of the House of Commons. It would be locking into our constitution a vision that was drafted back in the 1860s. That is not the right vision to pursue. That is a vision that would discriminate, for example, against western Canada. British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba would have six senators; New Brunswick and Nova Scotia would have ten; Newfoundland would have six; and Prince Edward Island would have four.

Yet the position of many people in the Reform Party is that we should start electing these senators on an ad hoc basis, as was done in the United States many years ago and led to an elected senate in that country.

I do not think many Canadians would want province by province representation in the Senate today because it does not reflect today's population. It does not reflect the large populations in Alberta and British Columbia. It does not reflect the tiny populations in some of the Atlantic provinces. I do not think many Canadians, if we had an elected Senate, would want to have the Senate exercise its existing powers, which are pretty awesome powers compared with those of the House of Commons. They are very seldom exercised today because the Senate does not have legitimacy.

It is like a dog chasing its tail. It is a never ending debate. It goes on and on. To get the triple-e we would need a constitutional amendment. At the very best we would need an amendment supported by the House of Commons, the Senate and two-thirds of the provinces reflecting 50% of the population, a never ending debate.

The Prime Minister at one time played around with the idea of Senate abolition. John Crosbie's biography states that when Brian Mulroney was first elected prime minister the first thing he wanted to do was to abolish the Senate. He never got around to doing it because of the complexities of the present system.

I have come full circle. In the final analysis there is no way we will ever reform the existing Senate. There is no way the existing Senate will be elected with any significant powers to make it worthwhile.

If we elect the existing Senate it will not cost the existing $60 million it spends. Once it is legitimate and elected with powers, we could double and triple the cost of the Senate as it empowers itself because it is legitimate, because it is elected.

I question whether we need two big, powerful elected bodies. The way to go is to abolish the existing Senate and bring the checks and balances into the House of Commons by empowering parliamentary committees and creating more independence for each and every member of parliament through fewer confidence votes, as is the case in most parliamentary democracies around the world. That is the direction in which we should be going.

It is time we had a backbench revolt on this issue. It is time we empowered ourselves as parliamentarians and said to the government that enough is enough, no more of the charade of unelected people parading around pretending they have all this power and yet have no legitimacy, no democracy and no accountability to anyone in the country.

That is a national disgrace. It is an eyesore. In the name of democracy, let us change that situation and change it now. This modest amendment by the Bloc will go part way to doing that by saying it wants a veto over the election bill. Instead all we do is consult with the Senate, but we cannot veto it.

Let us stand and vote for this change. To hell with the party whips. Let us make that modest change by ourselves.

[Supply, April 3rd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for the Minister of Industry. He said we should be moving on to other issues, and I certainly agree.

A poll on the weekend said that most people want us to move on to other issues. However the same poll said that 60% of the Canadian people want a public inquiry or an independent inquiry. I wonder if the minister would agree. That would be one way of taking the issue off the floor of the House of Commons and getting back to other issues.

My other question is that in every province the ethics counsellor or the equivalent thereof is responsible to the legislature and not to the premier. Would the hon. member agree that we should be implementing what was a policy of the Liberal Party and making sure the ethics counsellor is responsible to the Parliament of Canada and not to the Prime Minister? Those are two questions to which I expect brief and concise answers.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, maybe one of the reasons our standard of living in general has fallen in the last decade or so is that we have spent far too little in terms of research and scientific development.

We have fallen behind in many different areas. There are things we could have done better, things we would be natural at doing better. I am thinking of the whole agricultural sector because we are a great food producing nation. I am thinking of transportation and communications because of our geography. I am thinking of the mining resource industries because of all our resources. Maybe if we had spent more in the last 30 or 40 years in terms of R and D, it would have been of benefit to the country in terms of a better standard of living.

This is the kind of direction we should be going. Again, let us keep an eye on it so that we have a balance between rural and urban Canada in different regions of the country. Then everyone would be a part of the new and innovative society.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the answer to that very difficult question is that I am certainly pleased part of the funding from the CFI is for community colleges. I believe he said 10%. I think that is the figure involved.

That is very important. Many community colleges are in the smaller cities, the rural parts of the country. My province of Saskatchewan has several community colleges. Many are located in the smaller towns and smaller cities in particular that would not have access to this kind of funding unless it were built into the act itself. I certainly agree with that.

One of the problems in our modern society is that there has been too much of a shift into bigger centres. I am not talking about our country only, but in terms of the modern world where bigger is better. The big institutions are there and one has to always go to the bigger cities to get better jobs and to have better opportunities.

With the new technology today it does not really matter where many of the plants and industries are established. With the Internet and technology, it can be done in a small town, in a rural area, in a big city or in a medium size city. They have access to the same technology. This reflects the reality that we have perhaps gone too far the other way in terms of all the money going into larger centres.

One reason I put those figures on the record in terms of the province by province breakdown was not to criticize the CFI by saying that there has been too much into certain regions and areas, but to put on the record that we as parliamentarians should be watching where the grants go. I should also like to see a rural-urban breakdown, not just a province by province breakdown. I should like to see how much of it goes into communities that have fewer than 50,000 people or fewer than 10,000 people, compared to the 8 or 10 big cities in the country.

It is a legitimate role for parliament to make sure we watch where the funds go and to make sure there is some kind of a balance in terms of the overall vision of the country, which is to provide equal access to opportunity. Whether someone lives in a place like Peterborough, Montreal, Vancouver, Kamsack, Saskatchewan, Pembroke or wherever, everyone needs to have equal opportunities within reason. I think that is one thing we should be watching as a parliament.

Once again perhaps the relevant committee of the House should take a look at these projects and do a study to see whether or not the money is going where the drafters of the legislation two parliaments ago intended it to go.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1997, April 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words in the debate on the bill before the House today. In a way it is an omnibus bill and it deals with a couple of radically different items.

The first one is the appropriation of considerable sums of money to the Canada foundation for innovation. In fact we would appropriate, if this bill passes in the House of Commons, $1.25 billion to that particular foundation. The other item deals with a small but important change to the Canada pension plan.

I notice a greater propensity now on the part of the government to introduce omnibus bills and I think it is wrong in principle. We are dealing with two fundamentally different items here, and it would be easier to vote intelligently on a bill like this if these items were separate.

We have just come through that with Bill C-8, the changes to the financial institutions legislation. There were massive changes in the bill, which was 900 pages thick and amended 1,400 pages of statutes. That makes it difficult for members of parliament to properly scrutinize bills.

That being said, in terms of the Canada pension legislation change here I would like to say a few words about the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. They are important to put on the record. The investment board is an innovation of the Government of Canada, whereby a small portion of CPP deductions from employers and employees will be or are invested privately in the stock market. Overseeing that investment in the stock market and advising where to invest is of course the new investment board of the Canada pension plan. The board has 12 directors. If my memory serves me correctly there is one director per province, which makes nine, because the Quebec pension plan is a totally separate organization and institution, and three from the federal government. The chair of the board is named from among those 12 people. The Minister of Finance will seek advice from each of the provincial ministers of finance and then appoint the 12 members of the board.

What is missing here is a small move to democratize the board. The Canada pension plan is a plan which has ordinary Canadian workers' money in it, so I think that on the board there should be representatives of the working people themselves, from trade unions, from retirees, who can provide valuable advice regarding the investments of the board. When we are looking at the investment of workers' money this should be one of the amendments the government should accept, that is, to have on the board people who represent the workers and the trade unions themselves. That is only fair in terms of dealing with the workers' money. There should be representatives of the workers on the board. That is a fundamental principle of democracy and it is important in order to democratize that particular institution.

In terms of the Canada foundation for innovation, I think all parties in the House are in support of the concept or the principle that we need more money for research and development. If we look at the history of our country, we will see that we are one of the few industrialized countries in the world that does not put much of our GDP into research and development. We have a very small proportion of our GDP in research and development compared to the United States, Germany, France or many countries in western Europe. We have to move more in that direction in terms of money going into R and D. This is a bill that is going in the right direction in those terms.

The Canada foundation for innovation became law in the 35th parliament, which is two parliaments ago. If memory serves me correctly it became law in April 1997. I had a chance today to take a look at some of the expenditures of the foundation. I must add that this is not a foundation that utilizes only public money. There is also money from the private sector. I assume the universities and provinces all participate in the foundation.

I would like to take a few minutes to read into the record the kinds of projects the foundation is supporting. Up to March 31 of this year, 1,175 projects had been funded, for a total of $873 million. That is a considerable amount of money going into research and development, technology, research centres and so on, which I believe is very important.

I will round off these figures to the nearest million. In British Columbia, 134 projects were approved for $110 million. That represents about 14.2% of the total amount spent by the foundation. In Alberta, there have been 112 projects for $58.7 million, representing about 7.6% of the funding from the Canada foundation for innovation. In my province of Saskatchewan, there were 28 different projects for $20.4 million, which is around 2.6% of the total. In Manitoba, there were 57 projects for $16.3 million or 2.1% of the total.

So far, western Canada has received about 26.5% of the total amount being funded by the Canada innovation centre. That is roughly in accordance with our population, which I guess should be one of the criteria.

Ontario had 434 projects and $311.7 million for some 40.2% of the funding. The province of Quebec has had 315 projects and $230.7 million for 29.7% of the funding.

New Brunswick has had 26 projects and $5.2 million or 0.6% of the funding. Nova Scotia has had 47 projects for $15.8 million or 2% of the funding. Prince Edward Island has had two projects for $730,000, which is .09% or one one-hundredth, roughly, of the funding. Newfoundland has had 17 projects for $6 million, which is 0.7% of the funding. The total in Atlantic Canada is about 3.7% of the funding.

That is a bit of an update as to where the money has gone. It is fairly evenly distributed across the country with the exception of Atlantic Canada, which seems to be receiving less than its fair share if we divide on a population basis the funds from this particular program. The program of course is ongoing and I assume that these figures and balances would change over time.

I think this is a worthwhile project. A lot of money has gone into it. I think members of the House would support it.

We would want, of course, to have time to scrutinize some of these projects to see what their value is and whether the taxpayers are getting the bang for the buck, so to speak, from the hundreds of millions of dollars we are investing. That should be looked at by a parliamentary committee. It might be one of the projects the committee could undertake in the months and years that lie ahead.

When it comes to the Canada pension board, we should look at democratizing the board and bringing in some representatives who are working people to contribute to the agency. There should be representatives from the trade unions of the country. Perhaps there should be a representative of retirees on the board, who can offer advice from a retiree's point of view. In other words, the board must be democratized.

If we look at the composition of the board now and at the 12 members on that board, we see that almost all of them come from business backgrounds and would be acceptable to the business community or to the business half of that equation of who pays into the CPP legislation in the country. However, there are really very few who have a background that might be more relevant to the ordinary working people or trade unions or retirees across Canada. Let us make that change.

In terms of the foundation, I think this is a step in the right direction. It should improve our country's investment in research and development. The relevant committee of the House of Commons should look at some of these projects to make sure due diligence is done. After due diligence is done, the committee should determine whether or not we are getting the impact in terms of R and D, learning and innovation, jobs and skills, and added value to the Canadian economy that is the vision behind the bill before the House today and that was the vision of the bill in April 1997.