Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of points here. The change that Mr. Brison is suggesting really would be an expansion of the current rules and not a clarification of them, as he's suggesting. The example used by the witness was European countries. In reality, only a couple of European countries—the U.K., the Netherlands, Cyprus, and Denmark—extend their preferential tonnage tax regimes to cable laying activities, but they do so in addition to shipping activities. They do not treat cable laying as shipping. The U.S., which is the other example, specifically excludes cable laying from its tonnage or shipping tax regime.
So the European countries don't provide a perfect comparison for the example. They include cable laying activities from their income tax regimes and instead apply a tonnage tax. Conversely, allowing cable laying to qualify under Canada's international shipping regime would effectively exempt cable laying from Canadian tax.