Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to each of you for appearing before us today.
As we're making our considerations during these times of tougher budget decisions, it's really important that we consider what the real cost is to government. Some of you alluded to the reality that the Department of Finance attributes a tax expenditure figure—I believe they said $34 million a year, for instance—for the capital gains exemption. In reality, that is based on the assumption that the disposition of the shares would have occurred in any case, which we know is quite possibly not the case. Realistically, as a committee, it's really important, when considering the actual costs to government, to consider that the attributed costs the Department of Finance uses do not really reflect the actual costs. In fact, the actual cost could be a lot less, and in many cases could be nothing, because the shares would not have been disposed of otherwise.
I want to delve into this whole issue of the contribution of private equity and the elimination of capital gains tax on those donations. It strikes me that, particularly in rural and small town Canada, there are a lot of small town millionaires who've done very well. They are not super rich people, but they've done well. They could contribute significantly some of their wealth to the non-profit sector. This comes at a time when there are a lot of succession issues as well for these business people in their 60s and 70s in rural and small town Canada, whose children may be in Montreal or Toronto or Vancouver or Calgary. What do you see as the potential to potentially unleash a generation of wealth to charities in rural and small town Canada as a result of eliminating the capital gains tax on gifts of private equity?