I'm going to take the next round as the chair.
First of all, I want to commend and compliment the U15 for its proposal last year, which was presented to this committee and put forward in the budget. I was very pleased to see that strong support for research and development in last year's budget. At the outset I do want to commend your organization for all the good work it does on a public policy basis.
In terms of my questions, I want to follow up with Mr. Nantais on some of the questions that Mr. Van Kesteren was asking. He and I were involved in the industry committee back in 2007. Mark, you will remember this well. The committee unanimously recommended changing the accelerated capital cost allowance for the manufacturing sector. We recommended that in February 2007. Jim Flaherty put that in the budget just a month later, in March 2007. It's been in sort of a two-year.... It keeps being renewed on a two-year basis. I know the industry generally would like to see it done on a more permanent basis.
What I want you to comment on, Mr. Nantais, is.... A lot of it is Canada puts accelerated capital cost allowance, in some ways, to compete particularly with our American counterparts, who actually have better depreciation rates on an ongoing basis. Can you comment generally? Would it be a better approach for the government to actually look at a comparison between depreciation rates in all sorts of sectors and look to harmonize, for lack of a better word, between ourselves and the American counterparts on depreciating capital?