Finance committee  Unfortunately, we have not. It's time to do so. We were very disappointed that the majority of provinces that had a pension review leading up to the deliberations that started in P.E.I., went to Whitehorse, and ended up in Kananaskis.... The Ontario government produced two retire

Finance committee  Yes, the Kiwi program is an example. It's a good example. They have introduced a $1,000 tax credit for anybody signing up to the program. I think they've had pretty good enrolment in it. Another feature of the Kiwi program was what they called an opt-out, so that when you become

Finance committee  --but at the same time, there's the huge problem that Canadians are not prepared for. The average Canadian at age 65 only has only $60,000--

Finance committee  Could I get back to you on that? I'd be happy to provide you with some written information on that.

Finance committee  Yes. I wasn't prepared to talk to the PRPP today, but I go out and speak to a lot of industry organizations about it. I think everybody is aware of the retirement security problems in Canada. I think one of the important things is the changing face of Canada's demographic numbers

Finance committee  Yes, it was a $500-million campaign that was put together by a federation of unions in the province of Ontario. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association mandatorily required that each of their members dole out $60 in order to fund some of the initial funding on that camp

Finance committee  Yes, I think we need to really evaluate these rules. Perhaps it's time for a change of the rules. I don't know how appropriate the Rand formula still is in this day and age. I think employees should have an option as to whether they participate in unions, particularly when there

Finance committee  They have no option to pay dues.

Finance committee  I think that's probably a legitimate point. However, I do have a problem with the members of working families, for example, who were required to contribute to that political campaign when perhaps many of them didn't have the same political views that the working families campaign

Finance committee  I probably will be back to talk about the Hiebert bill that's been put forth, and I'll discuss it more fully then. Anyway, there are some serious concerns about that, especially about the impact of unions in terms of driving the cost of public sector organizations in Canada. O

Finance committee  I'm sorry, I'm not prepared to comment on that today. I haven't investigated unions fully enough to give you a qualified answer on that. I'm here today to talk about the savings that can be accrued by making the public sector pensions equitable with what's happening in the priva

Finance committee  It's one option. It's not the preferable option in my opinion. I prefer the PRPP option. I have some concerns about the whole of the pension moneys in Canada being socialized and some of the long-term implications about these huge pools of pension money that are going to be in th

Finance committee  It's invested, a lot of it outside of the country, I might add. I think that's something the unions need to address.

Finance committee  Yes, there's certainly a risk that's there. I think the people who are in the system today need to be responsible for their own retirement. When you point out the losses that have occurred in the stock markets, I'd like to point out—on that $800-billion pool of public sector mone

Finance committee  The government.... There's $800 billion in Canada in public sector pension plans, and that's—