I call this meeting to order.
This is meeting 107 of the Standing Committee on Finance.
Our orders of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), are the subject matter of Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act and related legislation.
Colleagues, this bill is still before the House as we speak, so this is considered a pre-study of this bill and of the subject matter.
We have with us here today officials from the Department of Finance. We want to welcome you all to the committee.
Colleagues, as you know, it's a fairly large, substantive piece of legislation we're dealing with, so I did ask members to indicate which sections or which parts of the bill they wanted to focus on.
My understanding is that members want to focus on two parts in particular: part 3, dealing with foreign affiliates, upstream loans, and consequent definitions; and part 5, on restrictive covenants, charitable donations, gift and contributions, reporting of tax avoidance transactions, specified leasing property rules, shares issued for consideration for property or services, and real estate investment trusts.
The way I'm proposing that we proceed is we use our normal question rounds. Therefore, I will start with the official opposition, back to the government, to the Liberal Party, and back to the government for the first round.
The officials are prepared for a question and answer session.
We will start with Ms. Nash.