Sure, let me talk on that front.
I can understand from an employee perspective why one might suggest that it's not a tax but in fact the deferring of your income for your benefit later. From a business perspective, however, it is a tax. It is a hit to the payroll budget of the firm that the business itself does not derive any benefit from. It is putting its money aside for its employees, but it is not driving any direct business benefit.
You could argue that a private pension plan or a matched RSP is essentially an employee benefit. The employer may be able to attract workers by offering these benefits, as Mr. Stratton talked about with respect to pharmacare. When it's government-mandated and imposed across the board, it ceases to become any kind of a tool that one could use to attract workers. That's why we use the words “payroll tax” for Canada Pension Plan premiums, workers' compensation premiums, and employment insurance premiums.
One thing I also want to note, though, unfortunately, is that when we did some public opinion polling, we found that 25% of Canadian seniors right now believe their CPP benefits are going to go up. Of course, as we all know, that's not true. In fact, the benefit increases will help seniors over the next 40 years, when the completion plan is started, so somebody my son's age, age 10, will get the additional benefits, but anybody who is retired now or will be retiring in the next 10 years will see no benefit at all.