I thank the member for the question. There are a couple of things.
First, I think it's great that we can agree on the principle of neutrality as being an important goal to strive for. I think that is the right goal for our tax system: to make sure that it encourages growth and also is fair to all Canadians. I think it is a good goal. It's good to identify places where the system is not currently neutral. We could have a very long discussion about all the ways that's true.
The member has identified some important issues that may be challenges with the current proposal, those being the intercorporate holdings, the secession planning, and other elements that may lead to situations in which people in seemingly similar circumstances face different tax situations. These are some of the concerns that I hope are addressed after October 2, when we hear the response from the Minister of Finance. I encourage the member to continue those questions when we see that response.
The second point I'd like to make is about the small business deduction. I have raised that because it's kind of the core of the non-neutrality that we've have introduced, which is that we have a different tax rate for some kinds of businesses than for other businesses. One way we could get got rid of that would be to remove the small business deduction entirely.
Now, that might be something a lot of people would have a challenge with. Back in 1971-72 when this was first introduced, that was the exact nature of the discussion. We were going to have a small business deduction because we liked to encourage growth in small businesses. The challenge we faced, though, is how to make sure we focus those efforts on these small businesses to grow their businesses and the economy, and not use it as a place to accumulate savings away from taxation.