Status of Women committee  Any poverty-related problems that people have should not prevent the government from implementing measures like pension splitting, which was implemented yesterday. Whatever poverty problems exist should be addressed one way or another. I mentioned the GIS earlier. There may be

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  It can be changed, but there's a cost to it, and the cost is high, both marginally and absolutely--absolutely in the sense that a pension plan by itself is already something that is very expensive. So to add to it is not easy, because a 50% survivor benefit is already quite expen

Status of Women committee  Yes, but with the defined contribution plan there is no explicit survivor benefit. There is one, as you say, because there are some assets left, but the later you die, the lower are the remaining assets, so it's not--

Status of Women committee  There is always a way, but a defined contribution benefit is normally designed this way to be simple. So basically, it's not designed for that purpose. But there's always a way to deal with that. Each individual would have to do something with it personally by setting a portion o

Status of Women committee  What does it do, exactly?

Status of Women committee  Well, what I understand from what you're saying is that what the company does is not manage the plans to make its design more palatable for the survivors; it's just a matter of investments. It's my understanding that in lieu of the employee, they decide where and how the amounts

Status of Women committee  Okay, the only thing I know in that respect is that some defined contribution plans allow the employee's contribution to be put in a spousal plan. But otherwise, I'm sorry, I'm not aware that some employers would go beyond that. I was not aware of that.

Status of Women committee  Let me describe a typical case for you. A married man who worked for the public service retires and begins receiving benefits. His wife dies. If this man remarries, his new wife, unlike the first one, will not be entitled to half of his pension because the second marriage took pl

Status of Women committee  Yes, that is correct.

Status of Women committee  You're totally right if you look just at the financial aspects you mentioned, but we have to keep in mind that when a spouse leaves the family, the remaining spouse is left doing the things that the other spouse was doing, and this has a cost. For example, the surviving lady cann

Status of Women committee  On average, it seems that 50% is not enough.

Status of Women committee  The obvious positive is that it's a good poverty-related measure, but I don't know who would benefit more from it. You mentioned single moms. But there are a lot of people who would fall into that category, and they're not necessarily women or women with children. I really can'

Status of Women committee  I would like to add to an answer that I gave to one of the first questions that was asked on what can be done to alleviate poverty or to help improve the conditions of women. There are two other means that crossed my mind in the meantime. It's not that they are new, but I forgot

Status of Women committee  I have nothing to add.