Status of Women committee  When I spoke about improving the Canada Pension Plan, it was also with regard to increasing the income replacement rates. I think that it is a bad idea to increase the Guaranteed Income Supplement, because this is creating coordination problems with other sources of income. I would rather see the Guaranteed Income Supplement clawback rate drop so that people are subject to a 35% or 40% rate instead of a 50% plus 30% tax rate.

Status of Women committee  When we start to look at plans in other countries, we see that each country has a completely different system, and we need to compare them. The Canada Pension Plan already includes an exclusion method: it's the contribution by individuals with no children compared to individuals with children.

Status of Women committee  I am talking about meetings on Bill C-51.

Status of Women committee  She made a presentation last week. The Standing Committee on Finance only met for two days.

Status of Women committee  Ms. Alexa Conradi, President of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, appeared before the parliamentary committee on Bill C-51. I don't know whether that is what you are talking about.

Status of Women committee  Tax exemptions are quite complex. The income of an individual who works is considered taxable income. So this income is taxed. The biggest problem is not taxing retirement income, but the fact that the Guaranteed Income Supplement is cut by 50% of the amount from the RRSP, the CPP or interest from other income.

Status of Women committee  Fortunately, in Canada, there is a guaranteed minimum income for seniors, which is made up of OAS and the Guaranteed Income Supplement. According to certain figures, in Quebec, 53% of women are so poor that they are still entitled to the GIS, whereas this applies to only 43% of men.

Status of Women committee  Naturally, once there starts to be a labour shortage, people who are considering retirement, especially women between the ages of 55 and 64, see their activity rate increase swiftly. It should be pointed out that there is already an actuarial reduction of 6% per year. So there is already an incentive in the rules governing the CPP or the QPP, which means that some retirements are delayed.

Status of Women committee  Indeed, the Quebec Pension Plan and the Canada Pension Plan are two separate systems, except that, in general, they try to coordinate themselves and contain the same provisions. Bill C-51 contains a major cut. There were four measures in this bill. However, the measure that concerns us is the one that seeks to increase the actuarial adjustment from 6% per year to 7.2% per year for people who retire before age 65.

Status of Women committee  The proposal comes from the Department of Finance of Canada, which consulted the departments of finance in each province and territory. So in a sense, there has already been preliminary approval on the part of the provinces. As concerns enhancing the Canada Pension Plan, we can see that two-thirds of the provinces includes Quebec, if you carefully read the texts concerning the CPP.

Status of Women committee  Major changes have been made in recent years by mutual consent or by negotiation between the provinces and Quebec, which carries a certain weight in these negotiations.

Status of Women committee  I was speaking about giving money directly to mothers. Often, a man and a woman have children together and then separate. The man may find a new spouse, and should he die, the children's mother will not receive the survivor benefits. They will go instead to the new spouse, even if the union has only lasted four years and they have never had children together.

Status of Women committee  I said I would conclude with a few remarks on statistics, but on the specific issue of the sharing of credits, I was unable to find any statistics. I did a search and managed to find almost all the statistics I needed, but I would have liked to have found them within one publication or a series of publications to be found more readily on the Service Canada site.

Status of Women committee  I referred to the Quebec Pension Plan and to the percentage of people receiving benefits from the Quebec Pension Plan and the Canada Pension Plan. You can find figures in publications, but they are not expressed in terms of a percentage of the population. That would be an interesting thing to do.

Status of Women committee  I've been advising women's groups for 30 years. In the summer, we provided the Minister of Finance with our comments on the proposed amendments to the Canada Pension Plan as set out in Bill C-51. So, in essence, I am also speaking on behalf of the 13 other women's groups in Quebec, including the Fédération des femmes du Québec and several other major groups.