Thank you. I'm going to be more boisterous, Madam Chair. I know you've said that often you can't hear me.
I want to thank all of you for being here. I appreciate very much this wealth of information. I want to sort of pick up on bits and pieces of what we've heard.
From Barb and Joel we heard that 31% of Canadians ultimately make contributions to RRSPs, but over a 40-year period, 35% to 40% is lost to management fees. Of course, as you alluded to, the realities of what's going on in the economy and the stock market have further bled away the savings. Yet so many Canadians have been encouraged to top up their retirement with RRSPs. Given the current climate, obviously this isn't working.
Is it possible to convert all that money? In terms of what the government has invested in tax breaks and what Canadians have invested in terms of money that disappeared into the ether of the stock market, there must be a considerable amount of money there. If we were to invest that in the kinds of pensions that have been discussed here—public pensions, pension insurance, better GIS protection, better CPP protection—would it in fact benefit us? I know there's always this discussion that it would cost so much to do this. I'm wondering whether it really would if we were more intelligent about the investments.