Sure.
One of the principles in the last budget was that we need to be competitive with the United States. I would start with that principle. The last budget announced a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 19% over a number of years, which we see as a positive move, plus the capital tax and surtax changes. All those are good steps forward.
But look at, for example, the United States. When you get to capital investment, the average plant we build is $225 million, and under our capital cost allowance the writeoff period for a plant in Canada is about 10 to 11 years. It's about five years in the United States. So if you start adding up those numbers, $225 million being written off in five years as opposed to 10 or 11 years, that's a lot of money. When you're looking at Canada as the investment location for the North American market--because more and more we're just serving the North American market--you're starting out with a huge cost disadvantage just on your ability to reduce that capital. You add to that energy costs, dollar issues, and maybe a few other regulatory issues, and you end up with some significant disadvantages.
On an equal playing field we tend to lose in our industry to the United States because they're bigger--a bigger market, bigger concentrations. You need to get either equal to or better than the U.S., especially in capital investment.