Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As I begin, I want to say to you that I'm very disappointed in the comments made by Mr. Mai. In fact, the government members have been very respectful of these witnesses today. I don't recall any of them ever attacking any of the environmentalists who might be here. I resent that, and I'm going to stand up for these members, who care very much about this study on charities.
Nevertheless, having said that, may I ask you to do some homework for me. I'm not a teacher, but I really want your advice on this.
Mr. Paul Reed, who is a professor from Carleton University, was here. I'm going to read to you a segment of what was in his report. Again, it's on bequests, but there are suggestions in here that we never seem to get to, and I would be really interested in hearing from you about these suggestions. As Mr. Van Pelt said, this demographic change of baby boomers is something we're looking at.
Here's what he says:
Financial incentives may be worth considering for charitable donations that take the form of bequests. As baby boomers move into retirement and approach old age, Canada is on the verge of a period of historically unprecedented numbers of estates containing significant value.
Then he goes on to say:
There may well be potential for a graduated tax credit regime that would facilitate the making of bequests, which entail capital gains to charitable organizations.
If you have a suggestion on how we might make that happen, great.
He also suggests:
A further possibility that would have much the same effect as a tax credit scheme and would cost the public treasury no more than a tax credit approach would be a partial “matching contribution” approach, where for example, a modest percentage (say, 10 or 15%) of funds in a bequest assigned to a charitable organization would be matched by the Government of Canada.
So there are two suggestions he makes, and I'm very interested in hearing from you, following this, if you can send it to us, if you think this might have an impact on what we're trying to accomplish. And because we never get to it, I appreciate that you allowed me to read that out.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.