Mr. Speaker, at committee last Tuesday when the minister and officials were there, I asked about the tax-free savings account that the member referred to in his speech. The amendments in this bill include things like: to make any income attributed, to deliver overcontributions and prohibited investments subject to existing anti-avoidance rules.
As the member laid out, there are about four or five different provisions amending the tax-free savings account regulations or legislation.
The question I had to the officials was whether or not they had considered if there would be any overcontributions when they first brought it in. Had they considered whether there would be any ineligible or prohibited investments? Had they considered the fact that, in their experience, there would be certain people who would figure out that the penalty of 1% may not be sufficient to deter overcontributions because returns greater than 1% could be received?
The response from the government officials was basically that there are these very sharp tax lawyers, et cetera, and they figure these things out.
I do not know whether the member agrees, but my point is that it would appear that in this particular case the government had not used due diligence in formulating the tax-free savings account rules and regulations. It caused a lot of grief to a lot of Canadians inadvertently. The government does not seem to have used the same kind of rigour and due diligence to make sure that proposed legislation, in the first place, was in fact given proper sign-off at all levels. That does not seem to be the case. In fact, it seems to be inept.
I wonder if the member would care to comment.