Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a pleasure to see you, Minister, and to have an opportunity for a little engagement here. I have six minutes and a number of questions. I will try to be precise and concise. I hope you can reciprocate.
My first question is on income trusts. I'd like to ask you a fairly technical question. I'm referring only to existing income trusts, not to what happens to future income trusts.
I'm wondering why you didn't allow a transition period of ten years rather than four years for the bringing into play of the taxes. The Americans did that, I think purely because of the time value of money. The effect on capital values for investors who had, after all, invested in good faith would have been very substantially reduced. The negative effect would have been very substantially reduced had you gone for a longer transition period.
So why did you choose four years rather than ten years?