Thank you.
Thanks for appearing.
I have no doubt about the capacity of the Department of Finance to provide advice to do the research, but I have some serious questions about what kind of advice is being sought and accepted.
I think of the income trust fiasco and remember back to the previous government, when advanced rulings were stopped--not advanced taxation--and we saw the market react rather quickly. I assume that the department could have predicted that introducing a 31% tax on income trust distributions would cause a huge market reaction, and we saw it. We saw $25 billion lost in market capitalization overnight. So I presume that type of advice was available from the department, but was probably disregarded or not sought.
It brings me to the same sort of question on interest deductibility on foreign investments. Let's say you're working in a global environment where your competitors, in order to grow or maintain their advantage, are able to invest in foreign markets and acquire companies in other markets where they need those links and relationships. If those competitors are able to have tax deductions on their investments and our companies aren't, one of two things is going to happen. Either our companies are going to stagnate and lose their competitive advantage with other companies, or they're going to be forced to sell out to foreign interests, as we saw in the income trust sector.
Has the department made that calculation? Was the department asked to make those types of calculations on adverse effects? If so, was the Minister of Finance made aware of those facts?