I just want to make a couple of brief comments on that issue.
I have heard some suggest that while a business owner could contribute to an RRSP, they would then be able to income split as well. That is a fair comment. However, I'm going back to that family that makes $50,000 to $100,000 a year. They're trying to grow their business. They just do not have the excess cash to be able to fund their RRSP at least in the early years. Many businesses actually refer to their business as their retirement plan. It is their RRSP.
I just don't think you can look at a pension that's built up over many years and compare it to a business and say that one should be income split and one should not. I think the two are hard to compare. I don't believe that the private sector business owner in many cases has enough time to build a pension that would be equivalent to a defined benefit pension that maybe a public sector employee would be entitled to.