Thank you very much.
I come to you, Mr. Field. We've listened to a lot of witnesses today, and we've heard a lot of credible people talk. One of the things they point out—and I tend to agree with them—is that there is a sector out there that is ideal for these types of investment, for this type of a vehicle, the income trust, like energy and real estate. The government has agreed on the real estate side and has left it in.
Intelligent investors approaching retirement would have heeded, I would presume, Mr. Marston's advice and limited their exposure to income trusts within their portfolio, on advice from their brokers—if they're being advised by good organizations—based on the fact that there was a proliferation of income trusts, that there were a lot of companies moving to income trusts, and that they were risky. It wasn't the ideal advice that we hear about innovation, that we hear about this thing.
Prudent investors would have tended to say that somebody has to react at some time. But when your Prime Minister says he will not take action, then the prudent investors, the smart investors, are encouraged to go the other way, to increase their exposure in income trusts, to maximize the value of their retirement savings, to make sure they can care for themselves and their families in their retirement years and in their failing years, should ill health come upon them. So this broken promise, this lie to Canadians, has cost them a lot of money.
We have seen and we continue to get evidence and letters from seniors who worked very hard to save a little bit of money that, well invested, would give them some comfort in their retirement. Now they are in situations of poverty when they most need the money because they believed the Prime Minister.
I accept what the minister says about the cost to the provinces because of the way these taxes are paid in some of these companies, but in your opinion, has anybody provided to you, Mr. Field, what the cost is socially to the provincial governments, to the cities, to the municipalities of these people who are put in poverty and who don't have the money to care for themselves?