Evidence of meeting #22 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
Right. We're in a unique situation with our pension generation right now, aren't we?
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
You're also asking for a rollback on RRSPs from the conversion to RRIFS from age 71 to 69. Is there any particular reason you've chosen age 69? Or have you chosen 69? Did I hear you say that?
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Retired Teachers
No, it's in reverse. It's 69 now; we want to roll it back to 71.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Retired Teachers
That was the initial one that was in there. Many of us, when we did purchase our RRSPs, purchased them with the idea that we wouldn't have to roll them over until age 71. That's a beginning point for us.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
All right, and with RRIFs, you want the minimum taxable amount taken out each year reduced. Is the goal there preservation of capital or estate planning purposes? What's actually the goal of your members? Do you just want to defer those taxes forever?
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Retired Teachers
Well, it's both of those, for estate and also to defer some of the taxes, yes.
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Retired Teachers
For estate planning.
Conservative
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
Nancy, I really like your brief a lot, so thank you. One of the reasons I like it so much is because you're one of the only groups that come here with a constant. Of the 70 or so groups we've heard so far, it's really refreshing. So thank you for doing that. It helps us a lot in our deliberations.
You talk about a tax prepaid savings plan. Would this be similar to the lifetime savings retirement plan that we've talked about as a Conservative Party, that's been part of our plank in the past? Enlighten those members across the way who may have forgotten how this works.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
May I ask my colleague, Michael Murphy, to address that one, please?
Michael Murphy Executive Vice-President, Policy, Canadian Chamber of Commerce
Essentially, I think the background is fundamentally to look for another way to encourage savings. We think that's one of the really important things government can do. TPSP, the tax prepaid savings plan, would be exactly that, a program through which any Canadian would be allowed to put away a fixed amount of money, and we have suggested it perhaps be limited to $5,000. There's a reason for that, and I won't take the time to get into it.
You don't get the tax benefit right away with a TPSP as you would with an RRSP, but you would be able to earn money in the system tax free and be able to get the tax advantage later, when you do take the money out. So it would be a complement to our existing retirement savings plan, and we think it would be an effective one that all Canadians could use.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
All right. Thank you very much.
Finally, Helen, are the teachers going to be participating in our conference coming up on October 3 here?
Vice-President, Canadian Association of Retired Teachers
Yes, we're going to have the Canadian Association of Retired Teachers and also the Retired Teachers of Ontario.
Conservative
Garth Turner Conservative Halton, ON
Thank you.
A commercial message, Mr. Chairman. October 3 we will be having a national conference here--
September 26th, 2006 / 12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Brian Pallister
Now returning to regular programming, we continue with Madam Wasylycia-Leis. You have six minutes.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
All that free advertising, I don't know.
Thank you, Mr. Chairperson, and thank you to everyone for your briefs.
One thing that struck me from the round table in listening to Nancy and Catherine and Richard, especially, in terms of the business community and what we need for building a competitive country, is that none of you mentioned the importance of having a quality health care system. It seems to me there are many studies out that show that in fact our health care system creates a huge advantage and it actually helps account for some of our competitiveness today.
So I want to first hear from Ronald and Sharon and ask that you make the argument to the others about what's needed. While you're at it, you may want to comment on what you think the impact will be of the cutbacks announced yesterday, the $7.5 million for Health Canada's health policy research program and the $28 million for miscellaneous health efficiencies.
Then I'd love to hear from the others about whether or not you see this as an important issue.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
First of all, I think my colleagues around the table know about the health system being a competitive advantage. I think it's only fair if I could say on their behalf that they do know about it. I think it's probably more of a competitive advantage to big business than to smaller business, because smaller business can't afford to have employee health programs in the way big business does. But it's a cost to business to have higher health insurance costs, and they know that. I think they all support quite strongly a productive, efficient, publicly funded health system in this country, and that's what we're in favour of.
In fact, one of the reasons we're quantifying some of our requests is to make our health system more productive, and hence everybody else more productive and competitive. For instance, an electronic health record, which would frankly employ a lot of people in the information technology sector, would at the same time increase productivity, efficiency, and performance in the health system. I think we have to make all of those links.
With respect to your question about the cutbacks in the health department, I want to look to see exactly what health policy research is going to be cut.
We'd also like to make the important link, though, between education and health and the other determinants of health. That's one of the reasons we support so strongly increased spending on the social transfer, so that the other determinants of health, particularly education, could be supported appropriately. When people ask us what our top two priorities are, I say they're the electronic health record and education to contribute to our competitiveness.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Just before I go on to Ronald, what I want to get at here is this. To say one is in favour of and recognizes the importance of health care in our economy is fine, but we are facing hard choices. I don't think it's possible on the one hand to say we think all the surplus, $13 billion, should go against the debt and that all these cutbacks should go into effect and no further expenditure should go into improving our educational and health systems to make us more competitive. We have to make some hard choices. That's what I'm trying to get at here, Ronald—and then maybe some of the others.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Healthcare Association
Let me just say one thing. We tend to like American-style taxes and European-style services, and I think it's important to note that if we want these services, they cost money.
Chair, Research Canada: An Alliance for Health Discovery
It would be hard for me to comment specifically on the cuts announced yesterday, but I think in general we have to continue to support the health care system. We have to continue to support the research that underpins that system.
There's no question that going forward, some of the inefficiencies in health care need to be dealt with. Research is the best way to do that, to really understand what the inefficiencies are. That's why I chose as one of my examples the studies—the very extensive studies—that have documented when you should undertake very expensive procedures on patients and when not. Reducing the amount of access that's required to MRI machines and CT scanners and so on substantially reduces the health care system.
We hear so much about the sustainability of the system. We have to make it sustainable, and a lot of research needs to go into that area—even in such simple things as delivery of health care. In Ontario now we have the local integrated health networks. How you deliver the best health care across the network is a big research topic that we're getting into now.