Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I've seen Mr. McCallum's motion. In fact, we discussed it over the holiday break. We agree on the motion, but I wanted to be very clear that we also agree with the principle of the draft bill that we have seen on the Department of Finance website. As you know, the Bloc Québécois voted for the ways and means motion that dealt with this issue until the bill was studied. However, we think it is important that we do some work on this issue immediately to avoid having the debate veer into an ideological debate.
On the one hand, it is true that converting corporations into income trusts resulted in tax losses that we felt were inequitable, but it is also true that the government's decision caused negative consequences for many small investors. 2.5 million Canadians have shares in these trusts. Not all of these people are rich.
So is there some way of minimizing the negative consequences so that we can pass legislation which, in our view, is necessary? I think this must be taken into account, once again, because we do not have an ideological approach to this issue. Yes, we want legislation, but we also want to ensure that we have taken all the options into account so as to minimize the negative consequences suffered by small investors as much as possible. This could be done by legislation or otherwise, but in order to achieve this objective, we must be able to study the issue now. I think this is a question of democracy and transparency.
Minister Flaherty has consulted private experts in recent weeks. I asked him to consult the Finance Committee. He decided not to do so, and he was perfectly entitled to make that decision. However, the finance committee may decide on its own initiative to undertake consultations immediately and to make a number of recommendations to the minister, perhaps even before the bill is tabled, to avoid any ideological tangents in the future legislation.
Consequently, I see this as an issue of transparency and one of being as efficient as possible, both for the benefit of Canadian taxpayers and for small investors who have been affected by this measure.
On the government side, a comment was made that the previous government showed some lack of responsibility. I would remind you that it is also true that during the election campaign, Mr. Harper promised—irresponsibly in my view—not to touch the tax rules. So the 2.5 million small and large shareholders in income trusts are entitled to expect us to review the whole issue to ensure that its negative consequences are minimized. Thus we will be supporting the motion.
However, I would suggest a change in the wording of the motion. Rather than saying: “At least six hours are to be allocated for these meetings to be held before February 2, 2007”, the motion would read: “At least six hours are to be allocated for these meetings to be held beginning before February 2”. The purpose of my suggestion is to ensure that we have enough time to hear from the witnesses who will help us to better understand this issue.