It's certainly true that the reasonableness test is not new. In fact, it already applies to salaries and fees, so there's a long experience in CRA. In fact, it's not a particularly arduous process. CRA provides a lot of flexibilities to families in terms of salaries and fee payments. The idea that CRA auditors are going to go down to people's businesses and check to see if they're doing three hours of work versus four is ridiculous. That's not actually what happens.
Extending that same rule on the dividend side takes a rule that's well understood and applies it to a different type of income, which is going to be the dividend income. I think from that perspective, the idea that people working on a family farm somehow will never be able to receive dividends, and if your mother and father work at the restaurant they would be forced into one person's hands, is scare-mongering frankly. That's very unlikely to happen. Since it doesn't happen on the salary side, there's no reason to think it's going to happen on the dividend side.