Finance committee  I just want to make the point that in terms of funds that have recovered after the crash of 2008, you'll find that the large public sector pension funds have recovered the best. The CPP recovered all of its losses. The teachers' fund, OMERS—all of those have recovered better than the private funds.

Finance committee  Yes, I wanted to comment about the reason premiums were increased both in the CPP and latterly with the QPP. It wasn't on account of investments, but rather that when the QPP and the CPP were first put in place, the politicians of the day deliberately underpriced it, and the actuarial calculations were brought together to force the increase in contributions in the CPP first and then the QPP.

Finance committee  We have heard the argument that the increase in CPP premiums would be a job killer, which is why we put together the calculation. As I mentioned in my remarks, the total amount for a low-income person, which is in fact the people we worry about, who are working in small businesses, people who might be working at approximately $20,000 of income, the additional monthly amount for employer and employee is $18.

Finance committee  We think it would. We agree that purchasing a unit of CPP is probably the most cost-effective way in Canada today to buy a piece of pension savings. That said, there is also the advantage that the CPP already exists. The payroll deduction system already exists. The individual accounts already exist.

Finance committee  I would like to comment on that. When we make our recommendations we are including both those people who are in the low income brackets as well as those in the middle and higher income brackets. While we are sympathetic to the idea that we should just increase the RRSP room, in fact higher-income people are using their limits quite well, but the general population has left almost 95% of their room on the table.

Finance committee  That's fine with me. Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. CARP is a national, non-partisan organization with more than 300,000 members and 50 chapters across the country. We advocate for policy and legislative changes that will improve the quality of life for all Canadians as we age, and retirement security is the issue that brings us here today.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. The opportunity to divert a massive amount of demand from the health care system is huge. I recognize that you're diverting it from the provincial budget in the health care system, but if we think of a single taxpayer, it's important for us to save to the whole system.

Finance committee  The key point there is that a person who has no taxes to pay will not benefit at all from the non-refundable tax credit in the amount of $300. The people we're concerned with of course are the lower-income people who are providing care, and more importantly the people who have to quit their jobs in order to provide around-the-clock care, for those individuals will not get any support out of the current proposal.

Finance committee  I think the point is, when people are looking after this care at home, it will still cost, but it does not cost as much as in institutions. We're talking about chronic diseases or even severe diseases like cancer. When we talk about chronic diseases, for example dementia, it doesn't necessarily require the same levels of nursing care or costs that you would find in an institution.

Finance committee  Thank you for that. In fact, the proposal to add a strong enforcement arm to the national securities regulator is extremely important to our members, many of whom have investments. There is a strong belief that many of the investments they were put into were inappropriate. In other cases, their families have invested their money for them.

Finance committee  Thank you for that question. I know there's a concern that when we help seniors, somehow we are not helping the younger generation, and that is not our purpose. Our purpose is to focus on those vulnerable communities that are not in a position to improve their own situation themselves.

Finance committee  Yes, they would, and—

Finance committee  I think there is an opportunity to improve their lot. The dollar amount for those people on an individual basis.... As you saw very well with the top-up of the GIS, there's a limited number of actual dollars in the grander scheme of things, but it means a great deal to that targeted group of people.

Finance committee  Yes, thank you for the question. Indeed, the focus for us is to make sure that future generations of retirees have access to a savings vehicle that will help them provide for their own retirement and obviously not have to fall on the public purse. The focus there is to make sure that whatever new vehicle we come up with is a net improvement on the status quo.