Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Compared to banks in other jurisdictions, Canadians tend to be very modestly paid. There are standards that have been pointed out by the financial stability—

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Senior executives in large institutions tend to be well paid.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The vast majority would have been taken up by the banks, but we do understand that some degree of that was taken up by the credit unions through Central 1, which is the Central for Ontario and British Columbia.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I don't know the number.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  I would simply point out that within the context of banking, bonuses are part of the compensation system for a wide range of employees. When we talk about bonuses, they're not just for very senior executives. They're for all rank and file....

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  That could very well be.

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Can I just make a comment on the nature of bonuses?

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  The whole nature of a bonus within this context is to make part of the compensation dependent upon performance. It's a way of encouraging employees, whether executives or rank and file, to work better and achieve their objectives. It's not like a Christmas bonus; it is something

Special Committee on Cooperatives committee  Thank you very much. Good morning. I would like to thank the committee for this opportunity to provide the banking industry's perspective on the status of cooperatives in Canada. For the purposes of my appearance today, I'm going to focus my remarks on financial cooperatives.

Finance committee  It has achieved that, but the question of sustainability over a long period of time will depend on it continuing to achieve that rate of return.

Finance committee  I would say that the risks and the benefits associated with a defined benefit plan are different from those of a defined contribution plan. There are some real advantages of having a defined benefit plan. But again, and I think I've said this several times, at the end of the day,

Finance committee  Mr. Chairman, thank you for that. I think everyone expects and understands that this is going to be a fairly simply product. It's going to be therefore a low-cost product. That's what the government wants. I think we are building these plans with that expectation. We do have a

Finance committee  I think what Mr. Mohindra is suggesting is that the regulatory environment needs to be more efficient and more appropriate to the nature of the PRPP. I think it's unfair to dismiss the value of a PRPP because there's a regulatory environment that imposes a lot of burdens on it.

Finance committee  To step back, if you look at the retirement system in total, there are a number of pillars. We think of it as a multi-pillared approach. We have pillar one, which is the OAS and GIS, and we know that is designed to provide income support largely to lower-income families over age

Finance committee  I'd like to take you back to some of the research that we did at the CBA a couple of years ago. We looked at families who had access to an employer-sponsored pension plan and at those who did not. One of the things we found was that those who did not have access to an employer-sp