The key is that you said “small inheritance”. That's the key, right? The key thing is that these taxes should only apply to very substantial estates that are transferred from one generation to the next.
In fact, I was speaking a couple of weeks ago in connection with a debate in the U.S. right now about a gift and estate tax they have that is repealed in one year but comes back into existence in 2011. When I was speaking to the folks in the U.S., I was saying that I'm a big believer in the value of building up a business, an enterprise, or a family farm and transferring it from one generation to the next. That's part of the American dream and part of the Canadian dream. But at a certain point that value comes up against another set of values, which is the value of a degree of equality of opportunity and concerns about dynastic inheritances, and that balance is what I think needs to be accommodated in a tax with a very high threshold.