Mr. Speaker, having listened to the debate, I want to add a few comments.
It is an interesting bill that would provide a tax credit to a taxpayer in respect of whom an employer or employee has failed to make the contributions required to be made under a registered pension plan. The issue is that there have been cases, and I know members of the Bloc have raised some, where this occurs. The intent of the bill, as I see it, is to mitigate the loss of benefit to a retiree.
In terms of the benefit issue, this is one approach. However, when we have private members' items, the issue is to look at the intent and principle of the bill and then determine whether the mechanics can be changed. I find this bill to be an appropriate instrument to consider whether the existing laws of Canada provide reasonable protection for employees whose retirement income situation has been dealt a blow through no fault of their own and maybe through the negligence of others.
It is not clear to me at this time whether the issue has to do with negligence on behalf of any other party, whether funding and payments need to be made, whether there is an unfunded liability, what happens if there is a surplus or what happens in subsequent years when the investments may change.
I have heard members suggest that this is a very expensive proposition. We know from experience that we can craft any kind of an argument that would take the worst possible scenario and say that this is the amount of dollars that would occur in this particular case and therefore the cost is several billions of dollars, which is not affordable and so we should not do it. That kind of argument does not help the situation because we need to know where the problem is and what we can do under a legislative framework to ensure the benefits would not be totally lost to a prospective employee.
I want to give an example of how we can play with the numbers. One member talked about some things the government has done for seniors and said that we could forget this one because we now have pension income splitting. Now that we have come through the first tax year, under which pension income splitting is applicable, one of the things that has happened is that Canadians who thought they were eligible for this found out that they do not get a benefit.
As a matter of fact, only about 14% of retired seniors have registered pension plan benefits. If we take away all of those who do not have a spouse with whom they could split, that reduces the number of eligible pensioners. If we take out all those who receive a pension but at the lowest tax rate, splitting it, obviously, would not have any benefit.
The economic analysis shows that, after all is said and done, only between 2% and 4% of seniors will actually benefit from this, particularly the highest income seniors. The intent of trying to help low and modest income Canadian seniors by allowing them to split their income is, in fact, not the case. Only a very narrow band of people benefit, which are those who have a significant level of income.
As we can see, there is much to be discussed in this bill. I do not think it should be summarily dismissed as a costly exercise that would have no potential merit or benefit to Canadians in this particular situation.
This bill warrants being passed at second reading and going to committee where we can hear from expert witnesses, hear about the real examples and hear about the real numbers, whether it is $1.3 billion as opposed to $10 million. We have heard such a range here that someone may have put some facts on the table or proposed that certain facts were the case when they are not.
Taking a bill to committee says that in principle this is a matter we should look at. Amendments can be made at the committee stage and further amendments can be made at report stage. If we still do not get it right, at the third reading stage a motion can be moved to revert back to the committee to fix it yet again.
I think we have a lot of opportunities. I do not think this is a situation where we should summarily dismiss a bill because the numbers just do not seem to satisfy some members, for whatever reason. It could very well be that this is just a darn good idea and maybe the government members simply do not like to have anybody else have any ideas that are worth looking into.
I think we will find that the majority of members in this place will be supporting this bill to go to committee so we can find out the facts, develop the arguments, have an opportunity to hear from the expert witnesses, have our questions answered and, if appropriate, amendments can be considered. That is an appropriate way to deal with this bill and I will be supporting it.