I do recall a conversation, and in my opening presentation I stated that the “rollover of capital gains” proposal was not a good one. I even said that the government was wise not to proceed with it. I gave several reasons for it.
Just to recap them, it is a big tax windfall for disproportionately a very high-income group, a windfall in the sense that it's a reward for things that have happened in the past, not a use of tax revenues to provide incentive for future savings or future behaviour; it would have been a complex bit of legislation to draft and to enforce, which is perhaps one reason the government did not act on it earlier; and there are other, superior ways of shifting our personal tax system more toward an efficient, consumption-based system, which both Professor Davies and I have outlined here. These are things that previous governments and this government have done; that is, raising contribution limits to the RRSPs and registered pension plans, and the recent introduction of the tax-free savings account, which was under study by Finance Canada even before this government came in.