Thank you very much. First and foremost, I'd like to address the issue of was it or was it not intended. I don't think there's any question from anyone who looks at this policy that this policy was intended to eliminate trusts from the Canadian economy. Based on the government's own tax leakage numbers, which we have repeatedly disputed, a 3.5% tax would have dealt with it. We got 31.5%, so I would agree with you that there was an overt measure here to eliminate the trust sector.
We in the energy trust sector have been saying from the beginning that we are different, and that has caused a lot of people to raise their eyebrows, but we remind this committee that energy trusts were created in the late eighties with specific rules from the Department of Finance. This structure was intended for these assets for very good reasons.
The maturing base in the costs of capital advantage that has been created by this entity is allowing us to more fully develop Canada's energy resources. We have repatriated tens of billions of dollars of assets from foreign ownership, and those foreign corporations are interested in one thing and one thing only today, and that's the oil sands. They are neglecting conventional production, which is the bread and butter of small-town Alberta, and we fail to understand how this government could look at the energy trust sector in any way but to say that this is a beneficial component of the economy.
The 20% of Canada's production that we represent would diminish significantly under the cost of capital changes that will occur as a result of this policy. So we have asked ourselves many, many times, why would the government do this? It's clear it doesn't understand our industry. It's clear we have not done a good enough job explaining what we do. We defy anyone to take a hard look at the report we presented to this committee and to the Department of Finance six months ago now and not conclude there's a very important role for energy trusts to play.