Mr. Speaker, the estimate is that in a year a person would earn about $200 at 4% tax free, roughly speaking.
If one were at the maximum rate, which would be close to 50%, then one would save in the order of $100. Others have worked it out to be about $90. A person could save $90 over the course of the year, which would be tax deferred. That would be wonderful if a person does in fact have the $17,000 or $18,000 to invest in an RRSP, and I do not know how many thousands of dollars a person would need to invest in their kid's savings, et cetera.
For those people who can put $25,000 or $30,000 away in savings, although I do not know too many people in this chamber who can actually do that let alone the people who are watching on television, but I would say that was good for them. It is a wonderful thing for them but it actually will affect very few people.
One can see it in the government's estimates. It expects the treasury to have forgone revenue of $5 million. That is not even a rounding error in federal budget matters. Therefore, we have this rampant contradiction here. The government weights up the consumption tax and then it unloads on the savings tax. It would be nice if it could actually get it together.