Mark Adler

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the third pillar is major investments in research and development and the fourth is the immigration system. We are going to redesign the immigration system so that it meets the needs of the 21st century workforce here in Canada. It is going to meet labour needs.

There has been some talk about the OAS. The OAS is not an entitlement and it is not the CPP. It is a social program. We are sustaining the OAS for younger people so that when it comes to reap the benefits of OAS, it will be there for them.

I will read an extract that I found recently. I will attribute the source in a moment. It is called “Meeting Canada's Demographic Challenge”:

The Canadian population is growing older—first, because our birth rate for the past three decades has been below replacement rate. And second, because the post-war baby boom is about to hit retirement age. The implication of this is significant—fewer workers supporting more seniors. By 2015, Canada's domestic labour force will actually start to shrink.... This transformation entails everything from increased demands on health and other public services to potential skills shortages in key sectors across the country.

This is from the 2006 “Securing Canada's Success” Liberal Party platform.

The Liberal Party claims that we do not have a demographic challenge; well, the Liberals seemed to recognize one six years ago.

It is clear that when we on this side of the House see opportunity, for us it is equality of opportunity. On the other side of the House, they see opportunity of condition, opportunity of outcome. We want to create jobs for Canadians, investment for Canadians and a quality of life for Canadians that is second to none in this world.

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will move on.

The budget is built on four pillars. One of them is trade. Since 2006, we on this side of the House have negotiated nine free trade agreements. We have a number of others in the hopper, free trade agreements that the NDP opposition opposes each and every time.

Free trade, as we all know, creates jobs, and Canadians want jobs. We have provided, since July 2009 and the end of the recession, 760,000 new jobs. We are the only country in the G8 that has recovered all of the jobs lost during the recession.

The second pillar is resource development. We are stripping away needless regulation, needless red tape, so that projects can get approved in a timely manner, because if they do not, the investment goes elsewhere.

The NDP does not care about that. They were down in Washington just a few months ago saying, “Forget about the oil sands. We think we should shut that down”.

The third is—

[Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act, June 18th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise in the House today to speak in favour of Bill C-38, the jobs, growth and long-term prosperity act. The budget we introduced on March 29 is a moderate budget that keeps us on a strong fiscal track to balance the budget by the 2015-16 fiscal year.

On the weekend I was reading a story, Chicken Little, to my young daughter. In the story, a leaf falls from a tree and lands on the little chicken's head, and the chicken thinks the sky is falling. My daughter was very intrigued by this story, and we started to talk a little about it. I was curious about the origins of the story.

We went on to Google, looked and did a little research. We found that there is such a thing as a Chicken Little syndrome. I have to say that the first thing I thought about when I read about Chicken Little syndrome was the NDP. I dug out a definition. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Chicken LIttle syndrome is “one who warns of or predicts calamity especially without justification”.

That pretty much describes what the NDP is all about. It seems to be frozen in perturbation. What I mean by that is if we go back in the NDP history, back to J. S. Woodsworth, to Coldwell, to Douglas, to these great giants who were leaders, they—even Hazen Argue, the only NDPer ever appointed to the Senate, although he did switch to be a Liberal upon appointment—worked with the governments of the day. They were not destructive entities within the House. They did not oppose for the sake of opposing.

I had a number of calls from constituents over the end of last week and throughout the weekend. They said to me, “Mark, what is the opposition up to?”

When I was canvassing last year, on this side of the House we promised the people we would go to Ottawa and would sweat and bleed for them. We would work our hearts out for the people. We would not play games of process and procedure.

This is what the NDP does. The NDP and its Liberal partners stop us from doing the work of the people, the people who sent us here in a strong, stable, national Conservative majority government. The NDP members talk about how they did not have enough time to examine the budget. I sit on the finance committee, and we had 50 hours of debate on the budget. We had a subcommittee that looked into the budget for 20 hours.

If we combine the total hours of debate on the previous seven budgets, this budget has received twice as much debate. Absolutely, wow. The member for Burnaby—New Westminster consumed 13 hours reading Twitters from his mother, and he restricted 27 members—

[Canada-Russia Relations, June 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday marked the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Russia. It was also the 22nd anniversary of Russia Day when the declaration declaring Russia state sovereignty was signed in 1990.

I am proud to speak to the enormous contributions Russians have made to our country. Over half a million Russians have chosen Canada as their home. As the representative of the riding with the largest number of Russian speaking people in Canada, I have had the privilege to participate in the richness, complexity and beauty of the Russian culture first-hand.

On the commercial front, our bilateral relationship means jobs for Canadians. Just last wee, our Minister of International Trade led a successful trade mission to Moscow and St. Petersburg with a delegation of Canadian companies with an eye to increasing the $2.7 billion worth of bilateral trade that currently exists between our two countries.

We all know that trade means jobs, growth and long-term prosperity, which we on this side of the House are committed to. I wish our Russian friends Pozdravliau S Dnem Nezavisimosti.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, once again, we are debating Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act. Any further initiatives that would be forthcoming from this government would be total speculation and conjecture at this point, and really, nobody can answer that.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, it is pure speculation on the part of the hon. member to say that. He clearly does not know the facts. He has not read the legislation.

There is a strict regime in place. That is why they are called pooled registered pension plans. They will be pooled. Administrative costs will be kept down. This is what Canada needs. This is what our seniors need to live a life of quality and dignity.

We owe our seniors so much in this country. This government recognizes that. This government is prepared to do something about it, unlike those people on the other side.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if it is geometrically possible to circle a square.

The hon. member raises a rather interesting question because she seems to be offering more of an answer. She said that 30% of people cannot invest in an RRSP, which is all the more reason that we need a PRPP.

The hon. members on the other side are proposing an increase to the CPP. They do not understand two things. One, we need to have the agreement of two-thirds of the provinces representing two-thirds of the population to make any changes to the CPP mechanism. Two, CPP comes out of people's paycheques. This would be just another tax on people, which would be a job killer, which the NDP would probably support in any event.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

The member is right. It is thanks to this government.

We have recovered all of the jobs that we lost during the recession. Since July 2009, we have created 765,000 net new jobs. The World Economic Forum says we have the strongest financial and banking system of any country around the world. Forbes magazine says we are the best place to do business.

A few months ago, Governor Branstad of Iowa said on Meet the Press, “The Canadian government has reduced their corporate income tax to 15%. I've had companies that I've called on in Chicago to come to Iowa say, 'We like Iowa, but if they don't change the federal corporate income tax, we're probably going to go to Canada'”.

It is all about the profits, and with profits come jobs. Moody's has given us a AAA credit rating again, as has Fitch.

Our strong economy, the jobs we have recovered and being number one in the G8 are not good enough. We are not standing still with that. I will be speaking to Bill C-38, the budget implementation bill, tomorrow.

Everything we do on this side of the House, every legislative initiative, has a purpose. Everything is tied together. It is part of our comprehensive plan. Again, it is for Canada's future. We are investing in Canada's future, in our people, not in the next election.

With respect to our retirement system, we have identified that 60% of Canadians will not have a sufficient amount of money to retire. That is unacceptable to the government. That is why we have put forward Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plans act. Under this plan, we will add a fourth pillar to the retirement income system that we have.

Let us take a look at our retirement income system as it stands today. We have the OAS and the GIS. We increased the GIS in last year's budget by 25%, the largest increase in the history of the GIS, and it was opposed not once but twice by the opposition. In fact, the first time the opposition forced an election because it was opposed to the initiatives we had in our budget, particularly those to create jobs and to help seniors.

The second pillar is the CPP and the QPP. Both are actuarially sound, yet we still took time to improve the CPP under its mandatory five-year review.

The third pillar is the RPP and the RRSP. The RRSP is an interesting vehicle. That vehicle is open to all Canadians; however, we find that $600 billion is underfunded in the RRSP. This indicates that people are not saving enough for retirement. That is a problem.

What else have we done to help seniors in this country? We have given them, on average, $2.3 billion in tax relief. We have given our seniors pension income splitting. We have doubled the maximum amount of income eligible for pension income credit. We have established the TFSA.

The PRPP is needed in our country. I will close with a personal anecdote. My father was an immigrant to the country and he worked hard. I remember when I was a young fellow looking through the window late at night, waiting for my father to come home. He would pull up in the car, which had a very distinctive sound. I remember running to the window and watching him get out of the car. He was so tired he could barely drag himself out of the car and get into the house.

My father did not have a retirement income mechanism in place at the time. My father has since passed away. My father owned a shoe store and had one employee. It was a small business. This would have been so beneficial for him and his family, and for the employee and her family.

This is the kind of country we are trying to create in Canada, where our seniors have a proper amount of income so that they can retire in dignity and live a full life of quality.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

—and it is all good, the members opposite oppose it.

I am reminded of the movie A Few Good Men. Jack Nicholson is on the stand and is being cross-examined by Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise says, “I want the truth”, and Jack Nicholson barks back, “You can't handle the truth”. Those are the people we are opposing on the other side of the House. They cannot handle the truth. They prefer to live with Tattoo on Fantasy Island, and those in the third party, well, they are just Lost in Space.

As a government, we have the responsibility to make decisions. We have a heavy burden on this side. We are the only party standing in the way of the NDP forming government. That is a very heavy burden, one which we do not take lightly.

We on this side are not concerned about 2015. We hear about the NDP and its rush to form government in 2015. In fact, I hear it is even cornering the market on orange carpeting for their ministerial offices already. Let me say one thing. We on this side are not concerned about 2015. We are concerned about 2020, 2030, 2040, 2050. The legislation we are proposing is not just to get us to the next election. We are proposing legislation that is good for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren for generations to come.

Before I speak specifically to the bill, I will talk about where we are in terms of our economic situation. We are number one in the G8 in terms of economic performance.

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans, June 12th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-25, the pooled registered pension plan.

I want to congratulate the Minister of State for Finance on the amazing and wonderful work he has done on this bill and on chairing the committee headed up by the minister and all the provincial finance ministers. I want to congratulate him on his efforts in guiding this bill through the House of Commons.

I have been a member of Parliament now for a little over a year. What has really struck me in my time here so far is the negativity I hear from across the aisle from the nattering nabobs of negativism. No matter how good a public policy initiative is coming out of this government—