Finance committee  I'm happy to respond to that. You've covered quite a lot of ground and a lot of points, and I can appreciate where you're coming from. I'd like to parse your comments and deal with each one separately. The first one I'll deal with is your comment about Ottawa, because I'm the la

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate it and I do appreciate your question.

Finance committee  The second point you mentioned was the Lacroix case, and I agree. I think the Quebec Supreme Court acted vigorously and I think the AMF did a great job on that. What concerns me is the provinces do have that jurisdiction to go after white collar crime. I would agree that with the

Finance committee  Mr. Mulcair made a very good point about the U.S., and the SEC probably should not be held up as the best example of regulators. They certainly had failures. But my sense is that the failures are not so much because it was national but more because it just didn't do the job it wa

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance to participate in this pre-budget consultation. Our association represents over 200 members firms, investment dealers that employ over 40,000 Canadians from c

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. McCallum. I guess the way I'd start my answer is to say that looking at RRSP usage, it seems to me that when we look at the aggregate numbers, you're right, a lot of Canadians are not using RRSPs the way one would anticipate. But if you look at it

Finance committee  Well, the minimum withdrawal is once the RRSP has been converted into an annuity, into an RRIF, and the problem right now is that there's a formula that stipulates a maximum withdrawal each year. If that's removed, it gives a lot more flexibility on simply withdrawing the funds f

Finance committee  I think if you provided the flexibility, the likelihood is that the tax take would be stretched out over a longer period of time, for sure.

Finance committee  I'm not sure. If it didn't and the individual died, then the tax would—

Finance committee  —be imposed at that point, anyway. But I think when you look at the cost benefit, I think the benefit to elderly Canadians to have that flexibility in their retirement years justifies doing it.

Finance committee  Again, it depends on how you measured. If you measured it in terms of the number of companies that would qualify—because what I'm suggesting here is that you target it into common shares of small companies—it would be the vast majority of companies. Even on the TSX listing, whe

Finance committee  It would capture a large number of companies. In fact, that would even understate the number that it would capture, because you'd then be encouraging companies that are staying private to list. So I think it would have a big impact.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  You're quite right in terms of their not being used, but the fact is that they have been set up. They're there as standby facilities. It gives, I think, confidence to the marketplace. For example, the insured mortgage program was a very effective vehicle for providing a source o

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Pacetti. It's my pleasure to be here this morning. I have formal remarks, but I'll just talk a bit informally on the substance of my presentation. I'll preface my remarks by saying that while I think Canada faces some huge challenges in a very competitive global e