Finance committee  One of the challenges we have is we're concerned about our employees, and some, even though we match, do not contribute to their RSPs because they're living from paycheque to paycheque. They may get a windfall, but they may not want to put in the RSP because there's a penalty for

Finance committee  Yes, but some aren't looking for the tax deduction. They don't think that way. There are a lot of people who are like that. It just gets them moving.

Finance committee  First, I have to say that it is a Canadian's choice to be self-employed. Hewlett-Packard did a study through Ipsos Reid and found Canadians' number one job prospect was to own their own business or be self-employed. That is a major shift that is happening, and I think it's worth

Finance committee  The last sentence stole my thunder. With our membership, we were pushing for some vehicle. A lot of our members and their employees do not have a pension. They have RSPs, or they sell their firm and there's a big succession issue. That's another thing we've mentioned to this comm

Finance committee  Thank you. That's a good point; and yes, we acknowledge that. Some of you were at this committee when we were asked to come to an emergency committee in 2005 on the fuel crisis. It was going up to a dollar a litre. We were all asked to come in, because people were asking what we

Finance committee  I didn't suggest that.

Finance committee  Let me go on all of them. We would agree with a longer CCA. We like the changes that were done on the scientific research and experimental development tax credit. As you know, Chair, the advisory committee on paperwork reduction started under Ralph Goodale, and we've contin

Finance committee  I don't know about your amendment.

Finance committee  I'd have to go to our membership, but I do know they were upset by the surplus. I don't like the fact that the $54 billion is gone. At the same time, I'm concerned about the payments. If $54 billion was all of a sudden moved to a separate account, the government would be in debt

Finance committee  As we have said, we think it should be a bigger gesture. My concern is about where the $54 billion is going to come from. If we take the $54 billion back, that will drive us into a deficit and a debt, and no one would support that. At the same time, I don't think employees and e

Finance committee  Yes, it's one of our major issues. With others, we put this EI surplus on the map. We talked about it when it was $15 billion and we presented to this committee, and when it was $16 billion, when it was $20 billion, when it was $30 billion, when it was $40 billion. We said you ha

Finance committee  Certainly keeping up with the benefits—

Finance committee  That's correct. But I'm throwing a new ethical issue on the table. It's ethically wrong to build it up to $54 billion, with people assuming it's an EI surplus, on which the government paid interest, and then changing it with a quick stroke of the pen to say that, okay, now that's

Finance committee  We're actually working with the Liberal Party now. We have meetings with them tomorrow. And we've worked for the B.C. government. We've said a few things. We've sent a survey to all our members on whether we should have a revenue-neutral carbon tax. It's coming back in June. Cor

Finance committee  This is why, beyond the discussion of the agencies, we say that we need to fix EI. When you have 15% of employers saying they have used the job creation partnerships and the rest don't even know about it, or 13% saying they had never heard of the self-employment program, per page