Finance committee  I'm sorry, Mr. Chair.

Finance committee  I think I would take that offline. I don't have a comment.

Finance committee  I don't think that this would be forced upon anyone. This would be voluntary in the event that one chose to purchase long-term care insurance. Clearly, the numbers that have been shown from the C.D. Howe Institute's study indicate that this is an issue the provinces will not be in a position to deal with, based on the demographic shifts and the incidence of longevity and illness.

Finance committee  Very specifically, with respect to the RRIF withdrawal limit, reducing it allows seniors to retain more money in a tax-sheltered environment, which will allow them to be in a position to ensure that they do not run out of money in the future. That is a significant assist. As I indicated in my remarks, I would hope that this review would continue to take place more frequently than every 30 years, so that we can ensure that seniors will remain solvent from a financial perspective.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. Brison. First of all, there has to be a recognition that between 60% to 70% of Canadians feel that long-term care is covered under the Canada Health Act. We determined that in the research we did, so clearly we have a significant misconception among Canadians in terms of the fact that they think they are covered for long-term care.

Finance committee  These rules had not been reviewed in 30 years, and clearly since that time, two key factors have changed. The first is longevity. People are living much, much longer. Second, rates of return in today's environment bear no resemblance to the rates of return in the early 1990s. The issue is, very simply, that at the current withdrawal rates under the old withdrawal schedule, people were going to run out of money.

Finance committee  It's quite obvious that if you don't put money away now and allow it to compound over an extended period of time, then you will find that you will not have sufficient funds in retirement to pay for a lifestyle, let alone health care needs, which will be inevitable. The time to start saving is now.

Finance committee  I must say that CALU has not done any work on the TFSA, so I really can't comment other than to say that if you'd like us to do some further research, we would be prepared to do so and report back.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for today's opportunity. I'm Terry Zive and I appear before you today as a member of the CALU board of directors and the chair of CALU's government relations committee. CALU and our sister organization Advocis represent approximately 11,000 insurance and financial advisers, who in turn provide financial advice to millions of Canadians.