Finance committee  First of all, you used the word “mandatory” right in the middle of your remark there--

Finance committee  Okay, it should be voluntary. If Canadians were generally astute in terms of how to invest their RRSPs, if they understood, if part of their education was a very thorough review of management expense ratios and how they work, and how important they are, and compound interest, if

Finance committee  I want to jump in. Earlier you asked a question about what would happen if there were a voluntary CPP supplement, which would be on a defined contribution basis. It's going to suck money out from the RRSP contributions people would have otherwise made. There's a very important

Finance committee  But it can also enhance their pensions. If it does suck away the RRSP money from higher expense ratio investments, then maybe over time it will actually enhance the pensions people have access to.

Finance committee  You're correct. With these various schemes around the world, I think by and large they do try to have contributions that are based on risk. But when you have a very large organization that fails, its massive deficit can then swamp the whole insurance scheme, dropping its own fund

Finance committee  If I could just comment on the Quebec solution, if you're an organization and the plan is 85% funded—and perhaps Ms. Cameron can peer-review what I'm saying here—the Caisse de dépôt then takes over the pensions at that 85% level. So people effectively have to accept that at that

Finance committee  I think where the difference lies is that for the companies that have the big DB plans, the size of the liabilities and assets in those pension plans and of the deficits—especially what we've been experiencing—can completely swamp the whole company. The costs of environmental and

Finance committee  Ms. Cameron talked about the funding of federally regulated plans. Those are well-funded plans, actually. The provincial plans are worse funded. If you go back to March 2009, the typical funded ratio was around 65%, maybe 70%, or even lower than that. Had those organizations at

Finance committee  It won't be perfect. That is correct.

Finance committee  FETCO's solution would be not to do either. It would be to strengthen the system of funding--

Finance committee  On that score, a problem of these pension benefits guaranty funds is that if you're a planned sponsor and you're running your plan as best you possibly can, and it's reasonably well funded or very well funded, then the risk is that you will end up putting your moneys into this gu