Finance committee  On behalf of the 3.3 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, we want to thank you for the opportunity to present our views. The CLC brings together workers from virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy in all occupations and in all parts of Canada. Leading economi

Finance committee  Certainly. In general, what we see is that income splitting or pension income splitting, which has been implemented now, benefits higher income individuals more than lower income individuals. Part of this is because if seniors are unattached, they don't benefit. Thirty per cent o

Finance committee  Absolutely. When I hear Ms. Pohlmann talking about the small business hiring credit, I think it would have been a far better policy to reinstate some of that so that the EI operating account didn't go into deficit and premiums didn't have to rise during a very weak recovery when

Finance committee  Are you talking about concerns about EI financing?

Finance committee  Right. Our concerns about the financing are that first, just as the CFIB stated, this is one area of agreement where we would like the funds to be separate from the general account. We want to make sure that if there are surpluses they aren't stolen as they were before. The $57 b

Finance committee  The government has some control, yes.

Finance committee  Absolutely. This bill does provide for PRPPs to be subject to pension splitting as well. That's one concern. We are concerned about pension splitting and the adverse effects of that on low- and medium-income families in terms of where you're putting your tax expenditure dollars

Finance committee  I have one more paragraph. Pension-splitting measures cost $3.2 billion in 2010 alone. We argue that these tax expenditures would be better directed at returning the OAS to age 65, and improving the GIS so that all seniors in Canada are above the poverty line. Thank you.

Finance committee  On behalf of the 3.3 million members of the Canadian Labour Congress, we want to thank you for this opportunity to present our views regarding the 2012 budget implementation bill. The CLC brings together workers from virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupat