Mr. Speaker, I purposely did not speak about this program because there has already been a lot of time attributed to it. However, the short answer to his question would be, what about it. This program will probably make the banks and the brokers richer because a separate account will need to be set up. We will also need to track separate investments or a separate fund but we are not sure how it will be created.
When CCRA officials were before the finance committee yesterday I asked them how much this would cost. They had no idea about the cost but I think somebody said that it would probably save taxpayers $10 or $15 a year. I am not sure what the cost involved is.
If the government were genuine in trying to have Canadians save, first, it never would have cut the GST two months ago, and second, all it needs to do is provide Canadians with their first $500 of investment income tax free. It would just be an extra line on the income tax return. We would not need to set up accounts, fill out forms or monitor them separately.
This is just another way of Conservative bureaucracy which the Conservatives say they do not like but actually decide to implement even more bureaucracy.