Merci beaucoup, monsieur.
I would venture at this point, committee members, to again emphasize that this bill proposes to make
a fundamental change to the RRSP program.
It's not after-tax money going in under this proposal. So Mr. St-Cyr's motion quite thoughtfully attempts to address the fact that money contributed under the current program is after-tax money, and money contributed under the new proposal would be before-tax money. The money that would be contributed under Mr. McTeague's proposal, being tax deductible, would create a circumstance where before-tax money could be taken off a parent's income and be transferred to a child's name and subsequently be withdrawn in the child's name. This is a major advantage, an incredible opportunity for income splitting, that makes seniors' income splitting pale by comparison.
Mr. St-Cyr's proposal is to limit the amount that would be eligible for such treatment on an annual basis. If we disregard Mr. St-Cyr's amendment or in any way disregard our responsibility to address the issue of what would be the allowable limit for contribution on an annual basis for deductibility—because that is what Mr. McTeague is proposing—I would suggest we are not discharging our responsibilities to the Canadian taxpayer very well.
The government's proposal yesterday was not to allow one-time deductibility of $50,000, but to allow contributions up to that amount in a lifetime, per child, of after-tax dollars, not before-tax dollars. So what Mr. St-Cyr is trying to address in this amendment is both logical and thoughtful, in my estimation, and I would encourage further discussion on this issue before we move to a vote, because I'm not convinced from the tenor of the discussion that this has been well thought out by our committee members.
Mr. Thibault.