I understand your position on that, Mr. Paquette. I will try to deal with the second aspect, why we chose four years instead of two years, or six years, or eight years, or whatever.
The nearest comparable case we had internationally was that of Australia, which dealt with this issue some years ago. They chose a three-year transition. We are more generous than that in allowing four years. Not only is the transition period more generous, but we're allowing double growth, basically. We're allowing income trusts, pursuant to the rules that we released in December, to double in size over the course of the four years.
It could go longer than that. It could go another six years. It'll cost the taxpayers of Canada $3 billion federally and more than $2 billion provincially. So $5 billion will have to be paid by those of us sitting around this table and by people at home, hard-working Canadians. If you think that's the right thing to do, then that's your view. I don't share that view. I don't think it is your view, as a matter of fact. I think you think the four years is a reasonable period of time and that it's a question of fairness to Canadian taxpayers.
Why should one form of corporate entity have a tax advantage over another form of corporate entity in Canada?