This seems a bit confusing.
First, you're right: RRSPs can be withdrawn from in any year, not just "After 55" or whatever. You treat them as income in the year you make the withdrawal, so don't retire and withdraw in the same tax year as you made contributions. Easy peasy.
Second: your company offers 14% matching? I've never heard of this.
RRSPs in Canada work this way:
In year X, having no previous income, you make $100k. Your "Year X + 1" space for RRSPs is now $100 * 18% = 18k
In year X+1, you may now deduct $18k from your income, if you put it in an RRSP. This comes off the high end, so if you salary doesn't change, you literally only have to claim the $82k you didn't stash.
If you make another $100k in Year X+1, and you don't use your $18k, you'll have $36k of room in year X+2. If you do stash your $18k, you only claim $82k in Year X+1 and will have another $18k of space in year X+2.
So it's great, but rare, for a company to offer, "We'll match funds, dollar for dollar, up to 18% of your income", although some may word it differently "We'll match up to 9%" which means you put in 9%, they put in 9%.
But it doesn't make sense to say "You put in 14%, we'll put in 14%" because that goes to 28% every year, which will quickly go over your limit from the previous year. It seems more likely that they mean "you put in 7%, we put in 7%".
Also, I've never worked at a company that went that high. In it's best days, Nortel used to give $1 for $1 up to a certain limit (I don't think it went all the way to 9% for 9%) and several companies around here in Ottawa went $0.50 for every $1 the employee put in (up to a limit, something like "you put in 10%, the company contributes 5%).
Some companies, such as my last, actually locked in the money in with some provider until you left the company. (This may be what someone referred to as a LIRA, but mine wasn't literally a LIRA). As soon as I left that company, I moved my money from the company sponsored plan (with its high MERs) and into a Questrade account.
In your situation, I assume you received a Notice of Assessment from the CRA detailing the $4k of RRSP room you had from your previous year of employment (You earned about $22k then?) Yes, you should arrange with your employer so together you contribute the exact amount you possibly can (The $4k you quoted) Hopefully, the $22k was a partial year's salary and this year's full year salary will be higher? In that case, *next* year will be when you can really use power of the RRSP deduction to do some tax deferral.
I would still sign up for the employer matching, though. TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS is still money, right?
Toque.