Finance committee  Part of our recommendation is that the current regulatory regime needs to be fixed so that we don't get our companies' funds into the position that the Nortel pensioners find themselves in, to deal with contribution holidays, to deal with surplus, to deal with deficiency funding.

Finance committee  It is a large amount of money but one that we didn't pull out of a hat. We did consult with Bernard Dussault, who helped us come up with that number. Of course, as you know, David Dodge has also repeated that number in the C.D. Howe Institute's recent paper, indicating that regar

Finance committee  That's accurate, and the numbers range, but there is some agreement in the literature on it being anywhere from 60% to 70%. Even the research papers sent out by the provincial finance ministers based on Mr. Baldwin's report indicated that it was anywhere from 50% to 60%. These a

Finance committee  To make a point about Mr. Wallace's question, you'll find that this sub-sample of our membership is a strong supporter of the Conservative Party, and this makes its recommendations even more forceful.

Finance committee  Well, I will.

Finance committee  This is why we recommend a universal fund that is not tied to the decisions of one employer or even to any group of employers. It needs to be something that is widely available, with no advantage or disadvantage for one employer over another if they opt in or out of the plan. Whe

Finance committee  Thank you for that. You have to understand that in that question we were asking members to distinguish among the different options there. You're quite right to point out that if we simply went on the basis of this, we would only be recommending a supplementary CPP. However, the

Finance committee  Thank you. We've been asked about the issue of mandatory and voluntary quite a bit, and I'm not sure why it is that people are so frightened of the idea of it being mandatory. In fact, mandatory works. Obviously, our model focuses on a big-picture framework that says that if yo

Finance committee  We present to our membership what we hope to be a well-reasoned advocacy position based on the research we have and the circumstances, and we get feedback from our membership, which is unlike many stakeholder groups who make the decision for the members. We try to give them feedb

Finance committee  There is a distinction.

Finance committee  No, but the future comes along pretty quickly. In this circumstance, people have to start saving now in order to have their money in place for their own retirement. If we don't start today, then it's going to be another 35 years.

Finance committee  The importance of a pension summit is so that all the people who have the authority to make changes—that is, all the finance ministers at all levels of government—have to be around the table and have to concentrate on finding solutions. But at such a summit, there should be repre

Finance committee  No, there is an opportunity to use multi-employer pension plans. They have had some poor performance, mostly because there is a diffusion of accountability. Once you have multiple groups in there, the difficulty is that none of them are in charge. It is one option. It's not one

Finance committee  The 6% was simply to test our members' acceptance of the idea of doubling or increasing the CPP contributions at this time.

Finance committee  That is the nature of pensions. You do not start benefiting from the first dollar you contribute. It does take a working lifetime, a career, to actually get a full pension. That's true of MP pensions as well. Even though people are criticizing it for being gold-plated, in fact