The member will have an opportunity to speak later.
I am also struck by the degree and amount of what I will call the retropromise. It seems that anything that has moved within the last three or four years is now being characterized by the almost hysterical Reform Party and sometimes members of the Bloc Quebecois as a promise. If I per chance two or three years ago had told someone I intend to be in Ottawa on Thursday, hon. members opposite seem to have a penchant now for characterizing those words as a promise.
Day in and day out now in this debate we have constant reference by members opposite to what I call the retropromise. If it moved it was a promise and in the event that I did not happen to show up in Ottawa on Thursday, I broke my promise. That is not fair. I think Canadians see through that.
Aside from these deliberate acts, misleading revisionism involving the retropromise, there are a couple of other areas I could not help but note and I think Canadians noted as well. They are references to tax increases. I have heard members opposite talk about increases in taxes. What they are really talking about is that there has been growth in the economy, there has been population growth, there have been increases in business revenues. Everyone knows that when that happens there is an increase in tax revenues.
If hon. members opposite want to call that tax increases, they can do it but I do not think that is fair. I think that is misleading. When this government says that it has not increased taxes in a certain area, that is the truth. When members here say that, it is the truth and they mean it. When members opposite say there has been a tax increase, they seem incapable of speaking straight on the issue and what they really mean is the economy has grown, business revenues have increased, the population has increased and therefore tax revenues have increased.
I hope members opposite will forgive the growth in the economy and forgive the increasing prosperity of this country for generating more tax revenues.
I do not have any illusions that my remarks today will make much of a difference in the rhetoric around this place, but I thought I should put that on the record.
I want to address as well one of the items in this important bill dealing with the budget. I want to talk about the proposal to reduce the age limit for maturing registered pension plans, RRSPs, the reduction in the age for contributing to those plans from 71 to 69. What that means is simply that individuals will not be able to contribute to RRSPs or accrue pension benefits after age 69. They will also have to start drawing income out of those plans by the end of the year in which they turn 69.
This change is being made for a number of important reasons. The first reason is that it will help to move the maturation age for retirement savings and pension plans closer in line with the ages at which most Canadians will start retiring. The simple fact is that very few Canadians are saving for future retirement when they are in their seventies.
A second and closely related consideration is that the proposed measure will limit the use of RRSPs for estate planning purposes, that is, what will happen to a person's cash and assets after they are no longer with us. The use of the RRSP for that purpose is outside of scope of what was originally intended. The RRSP is for the living. It is for the person who is retiring, and the type of generous tax assistance provided to the RRSP mechanism was never intended for estate planning purposes.
There is the broader question of cost. The federal revenue cost of tax assistance for retirement savings is now quite significant. Technically, inside government it is called tax expenditure. It is really a question of tax revenues forgone in assistance of the retirement savings mechanism. In 1993 that tax expenditure totalled nearly $16 billion. As the finance minister has made very clear, the government is firmly committed to preserving Canada's retirement assistance program which serves a vital function. It does so in a very effective way, measured in both Canadian and world standards.
However, steps had to be taken to ensure that this program remained financially sustainable. The cost of the program was limited while assistance was targeted where needed. Even with the changes announced in the 1996 budget, the system will remain a generous one.
As this is an important debate on important legislation, I return to my opening theme which is to encourage colleagues in the House to try to stick a little closer to the straight line of accuracy when they use terms like those I have mentioned. I respect the need of the opposition parties to hit hard at things. They do not think our policies are the way they should be but it would help us all if we would use a standard of rhetoric and a standard of language. We should use terminology that keeps us straighter to the line and that allows Canadians to better understand the public policy issues that we debate here.