Human Resources committee  The last question is an intriguing one. How do we help the people who are in desperate need today? Things such as the tax-free savings account don't really do that, but as the last speaker mentioned, what they do is allow people to look after themselves with as much dignity as we

Human Resources committee  Here we have a segment of the population that is in desperate need of assistance. Without a doubt, people who suffer from a severe and prolonged disability are going to go through their money fast. They could have been fairly well off before the disability struck, but they're goi

Human Resources committee  Perhaps one thing we could do along that line is this. Right now, if a person touches any of the money that has been contributed in the last 10 years, that's a problem. Maybe what we should do is have some sort of graduated system. Maybe you could take 10% out in the first year a

Human Resources committee  With the Canada Pension Plan, the problem is that it doesn't directly target low-income seniors. The guaranteed income supplement is the program we have now that's targeting low-income seniors. The problem is that it's clawed back, as somebody mentioned, at a 50% rate that starts

Human Resources committee  With the expansion to the larger CPP....? Maybe I can answer this way. When I first heard the proposal that the Canada Pension Plan was to increase in size, my first thought wasn't as a financial planner but rather as a small-business owner. I have a couple of staff, and it jus

Human Resources committee  That's a very interesting question. People have a lot of different approaches and attitudes towards money. Really, there's a wide range of attitudes, from people who want to delve right in and become as knowledgeable as possible to people who are very reluctant to do it. To som

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the questions. One of the things I had to do today was trim my remarks a bit to meet the time frame that was allowed for us. I don't know if I did a very good job of explaining what I meant by the idea of these increased payroll taxes having an unintended consequen

Human Resources committee  To answer the question specifically of how many people in poverty I am dealing with, it would be a handful. Typically my clients aren't the people your committee would be fully focused on. However, certainly I do have some people who are of limited means. I know one lady in parti

Human Resources committee  As one of the other presenters mentioned, the problem with some of the other planning tools, specifically the RRSP or eventually the RRIF, is that they're going to be taxable upon withdrawal. If somebody of modest means is potentially a candidate for the guaranteed income supplem

Human Resources committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My expertise is in retirement income planning. Over the last couple of decades, I've helped to plan the retirement for thousands of Canadians. My clients are fairly representative of the population, but there's one notable exception, which I'll discuss. Th