Madam Speaker, the Canada pension plan affects all Canadians. They have a right to know the important details of this plan and how it will affect their retirement security.
I have asked the Minister of Finance on at least seven occasions to disclose the real rate of return that young Canadians can expect to receive on their lifetime CPP investment.
The minister has avoided answering the question all seven times, therefore, here I am again. I would like to repeat that I am asking about the real rate of return, not a rate increased by inflation.
To assist the minister in his response, I also point out that I do not want to hear of some hypothetical sum that would be returned after 35 years. I am interested in the real rate of return on an annual basis.
To further assist the minister, I would like to refresh his memory with respect to the Canada pension plan's sixteenth and latest actuarial report with which I am sure he is familiar.
Page 14 of this report shows a table with the real rate of return calculated for contributors to the Canada pension plan. For someone born in 1948, 4.9%; for someone born in 1968, 2.5%; for someone born in 1988, 1.9%; and for someone born in 2012, 1.8%. I might point out that a 1.8% real return is less than one half the real rate of return available through Government of Canada RRSP bonds.
I know the minister has in hand a pre-written, canned response. I also know from sad experience that this not only will fail to answer my question, but it will not even come close to doing so.
I ask the government to just throw away that canned response that is now in the hand of a member opposite and not to insult Canadians again with any well crafted, carefully crafted self-promotion.
I ask the government to spare us also the well-worn attacks against my party with fictitious numbers thrown in for good effect. Just give Canadians a rare, straightforward answer to a direct question.
I simply ask this government to come clean and admit that the real rate of return on their lifetime CPP investment for young Canadians, still too young to vote and many yet unborn, will fall below 2% and in fact will be only 1.8% I look forward to the government's answer.