Thanks for the question, and apologies to Mr. Sorbara if I spoke too long at the last opportunity.
It's a combination of things. I think they were caught off-guard by the timing and taken aback by some of the original narrative and the messaging. I think referring to long-standing, legitimate, accepted, and legal mechanics as “loopholes”, implying that they're skirting the system and being too cute by half, was really quite offensive. Whether that was deliberate, or just undisciplined language of the moment, is beside the point. That was the message that was sent, and it was unfortunate. I sense there's been some backtracking since then, and that's appropriate.
The process itself is problematic. Equally challenging for our members is for the government to go down the dangerous and slippery slope leading to accusations of “class warfare”. It's pitting people who are successful against people who are not, whether their shortcomings derive from personal circumstances, lack of opportunity and education, or cultural upbringing. This is an important conversation to have, but it's a very dangerous pool to swim in when you're trying to make necessary policy changes, and so our members reacted to that.
I think all the key points have been made across the country repeatedly. Our biggest concern right now is that we're seeing a constant doubling down by our elected officials, particularly the Minister of Finance, on this particular topic. Although you're now beginning to hear some language about the cake not being quite baked yet, that is a recent development, and it accounts for a small portion of the large volume of commentary that has come so far.
We're encouraging the government to step back from this and really think it through, really come to grips with it. The meetings that recently took place with a small number of hand-picked folks were much more open, transparent, and community-focused. It's really hard work, and I get that. It's not always fun to go into a room full of angry folks, and I really respect the Minister of Finance for doing that in the last couple of weeks. It's definitely what's needed when you contemplate something of this magnitude. In our view, first, it hasn't been done thoroughly enough, and second, there were a whole lot of unintended consequences from what sounded like not a bad idea to a bureaucrat who's never signed the front of a paycheque.