You are no doubt aware that a lot of goodwill went into the drafting of this bill. We are in favour of recognizing this type of contribution. I recognize that certain arguments are well-founded. In fact, if we give tax deductions to those who have box tickets to a hockey game, why not grant similar deductions to those who carry out recognized volunteer work? That would be much better.
If you had been the Minister of Finance last fall, and were seeking to solve this issue, would you have included such a measure in a bill like this one, or proceeded differently? I'm not in any way challenging your support of this bill. This is not a trick question. I simply want to make sure that given the general state of the economy, you would have opted for making amendments to the Income Tax Act to cover all possible situations. Would you have proposed a bill such as this one, would you have made additions to legislation, or would you have proceeded in an entirely different way?