Thank you, Mr. McCallum.
My concerns centre not so much on you going after the abuses, but that the current rules, by some definitions, may be interpreted as abusive in and of themselves. I'd like to address that issue.
The fact that money is shifted offshore doesn't concern me. The fact that it's shifted offshore to reduce Canada's tax obligation, or the obligation to Canada, does. The fact that it is then shifted to a jurisdiction where basically little or no tax obligation is incurred is a reality around the world. I know money will flow to those types of jurisdictions, so we shouldn't kid ourselves or buy the argument that what we're talking about in whole is going to reduce Canada's ability to expand its business efforts in the Barbados, which has a population of half of Ottawa. That's not why. Between 1990 and 2005, about a 4,000% increase in money going from Canada to Barbados occurred. It didn't go there so we could invest in Barbados, it went there so that these companies could pay little or no tax. That's why it went there.
My understanding from your presentation is that this money then can go from that jurisdiction to an affiliate company in another jurisdiction where they can also deduct interest expense for that money again. So Canadian-based corporations that have affiliate companies in the U.S. could actually reduce the tax obligation in Canada, move the money to a tax haven country or a low-tax jurisdiction, whatever semantics we like to use, and lend it again to a U.S. affiliate, where they would also be able to lower their tax obligation there. Is that correct?