Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister, for appearing before the committee. It's always a pleasure.
Just quickly, I'm a little troubled by Mr. Kramp's question regarding the tax-free savings account. I've had a little different feedback on what's been going on. I've been talking to a few people who are actually having a hard time putting money into RRSPs—it's RRSP season. In fact, there are a few people withdrawing money from RRSPs.
So I don't see how you can determine that it's been a huge success. The numbers are not in. I spoke to a few people in the banking sector. They said they've thrown huge amounts of money at it in terms of advertising, and it hasn't brought in any new business. People are turned off by the fact that they just can't make ends meet, never mind trying to put a couple of bucks together to open an account.
We had your officials here last week. Much to our committee's surprise, the Finance officials threw out $15 million in advertising to promote this tax-free savings account. The first instalment at the CRA is $19 million just to set up the infrastructure for a program that probably is going to generate nothing. I'm not sure what the return is going to be from an account like this. Even if people were to put $5,000 away, at a 1% return, I don't see what the return is going to be for the Government of Canada. If I were to give almost $50 million to taxpayers, I think they could probably find more use for it than what the government has done with it today.
So if there's a failure with the tax-free savings account.... I look at how it was supposed to generate a stimulus and to increase savings, but then you turned around and said, no, it's not supposed to increase savings, but it is more of a stimulus. And now I look at this package again, which is supposed to generate a stimulus. But if we look at all the little tax deductions here and there.... Again, I'm an accountant by profession and I'm talking to friends and constituents. They're not seeing any difference in their paycheques. Some of them are losing their paycheques. For somebody earning $30,000, it's $33.
Wouldn't it just have been easier to say, we're going to give the people who need the money $200 or $300—pick an amount—and actually stimulate the economy as we have to? I say this because with some of these personal tax deductions, even if people are entitled to get them and have jobs until the end of the year and file their 2009 income tax returns, they will only be refunded by April 2010. So even the direct stimulus part of the budget is not going to generate a direct stimulus.
Perhaps you could comment on this. And then I have a couple of other quick questions.