I think what you are missing is the whole point of his comment.  People without a pension, and entirely depended on personal savings, are taxed differently than those who only have a pension.  A TFSA would help protect non-pensioners from taxes on pension equivalent investments if we could transfer other registered  funds into the TFSA, but we can't as that would remove too much from tax revenue.  Taxes on profits made by pension funds as they adjust stock holdings would bring the two scenarios in line and provide needed revenue