If we encouraged that business, that would develop an economy: the company would employ people, and so on. However, it would serve no purpose. Would we like to encourage that? Of course not. Why do we want to do so in the case of the oil industry?
Can someone here tell me why the oil industry should benefit from accelerated depreciation at a rate of 100 percent rather than 25 percent, when no other industry enjoys that? Can one of the witnesses explain to us why Canadians should allocate a portion of their taxes to granting a tax benefit to an industry that pollutes a great deal, which, by its nature, is necessarily ephemeral and which is not as structuring as a host of industries that we should be developing?