Before I call for the vote, I want to go on record with a couple of points.
I think all of us should take very seriously the recommendations that come from this committee when we adopt bills. I think this particular amendment, as I endeavoured to point out earlier, is quite thoughtful on the issues it raises and tries to address. But I will sincerely tell you, colleagues, if we proceed to this vote and it makes the subsequent two amendments irrelevant, we are proceeding to adopt the bill as amended. It will follow logically.
Here are some issues we have not addressed. We have not addressed the issue of the grant. How the current granting program will interface with this proposal certainly remains to be discussed.
We have not properly addressed the revenue impact of the amended bill as proposed. There have been a number of points raised on this, including by the proposer of the amendment.
We have not thoughtfully addressed the issue of how this will impact differentially on certain families at certain income levels, and how these changes will affect them.
We have not discussed in any way the interface between the proposal we would be endorsing as a committee, if we proceed with this, as I fear we may, and the current program, and what impact it will have on the current RESP program. And although I would agree with the mover that the current program is underutilized, it is still utilized by 27% of Canadian families right now. We have not discussed that.
We have not discussed the impact this proposal may have on the rate of contribution to RRSPs. There's only so much revenue in Canadian families' budgets; there's only so much money to go around. What impact will the application of tax deductibility to RESP contributions have on RRSP contributions, in terms of the long-term security of those who should be saving for their own retirement? What will the impact be? We have not discussed that.
And we have not examined the issue of income splitting as it relates to income splitting from parent to child—because essentially this is income splitting we're talking about. We have not really examined the impact that would have.
And we certainly have not discussed, to my satisfaction, the overall impact this proposal will have.
I agree with the sentiments of the mover, as you well know. Most of us, of course, have proclaimed our support for the importance of investing in education, but we have not debated properly in any way the proposals that are before us vis-à-vis, for example, whether money should be going generally into furthering transfers for post-secondary education, as the budget did yesterday—in other words, global increases in funding as opposed to targeted tax incentives such as this.
We have not debated these issues. So I will certainly go on record as encouraging that we do that, because I take very seriously the quality of the recommendations emanating from our group here.
It was proposed that we call the vote.
Mr. Dykstra.