Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon, Minister. Restoring a balanced budget is certainly a tall order. The Parliamentary Budget Officer doesn't believe that a balance can be achieved by 2015. We talked about this earlier.
I have been an MP since 2004. That's when I first introduced myself. At that time, the Liberals were in power. Plenty of people were blowing the whistle on the Barbados tax haven, which had been sanctioned by that Liberal government and by Paul Martin, whose shipping company was registered in Barbados. According to my information, in 2004, 27 billion Canadian dollars were invested in Barbados by people wishing to avoid paying taxes in Canada. This was seen as unfair. My information states that, in 2009, Canadian investments in Barbados totalled $41 billion.
Could you tell me how much tax money the government loses because of these investments? Why is your government, which is not Liberal, maintaining the tax exemption Paul Martin agreed to out of what could be seen as personal interest?