Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.
We are discussing the question of urgency and whether or not there is some compelling reason for us to either pre-empt our other work on the committee or take the time away from our constituency work to come here before the House reconvenes to do these studies.
Mr. Chairperson, I would suggest to you that there is no urgency. There is no crisis. There is no market instability caused by waiting until the bill comes through. In fact, I would respond to Mr. McCallum's point about the government's position and their flawed position around the instability of the markets by suggesting to him that the uncertainty in the marketplace is caused by the belief by some people that this decision--the ways and means motion--could be overturned. That belief has been fuelled by the Liberals' antics and the tactics leading up to today's discussion. So the urgency is self-fulfilling on their part.
I would suggest we look at the situation of all provinces in this country. All finance ministers from all parties gave unanimous support to the ways and means motion in December of 2006 and are now suggesting that in fact work on our part to open up this question does lead to serious problems in the marketplace and must take into account the fact that those people who actually left the field, who got rid of their income trusts, are asking now why others are suggesting we extend the grandparenting and reopen the whole question when they've lost some money already.
So we have to be very careful about how we approach this issue. I would say, Mr. Chairperson, that I've tried to be consistent on this issue from day one, and I guess Mr. Pacetti is saying we haven't had time to discuss this issue. As far as I'm concerned, we've been dealing with this for a year and a half. Since September of 2005, this issue has been before Parliament and before the finance committee. We have been dealing with it over and over and over again, and in fact we now have, despite a broken promise, a government that decided to finally do what the Liberals should have done.
So I would suggest, Mr. Chairperson, we try to get on with the task of dealing with some other urgent issues, like the Bank Act and like the fact that many people are coming out of this Christmas season with huge debts because of high interest rate charges and ATMs that double-charge, and a number of other pressing issues that touch people in the pocketbook.