Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For my comments I'll stick to the two chambers. I'm a former chamber guy, so I'm going to stick to what I know best. I'll ask you questions about the small business tax changes and about energy east. On the small business taxes, it's been said that whoever drafted the proposals doesn't have a clue of what goes into establishing or running a business.
I was going to ask specifically on some of the rhetoric used inside the document. I used to also work for Alberta Finance. I ran consultations for the ministry through the minister's office and I've never seen a tax document have so much populous language implying that small business owners are tax cheats or tax dodgers, implying that they're not paying their fair share, implying that somehow they're cheating the system, or they've taken advantage of loopholes.
I want to hear from the Atlantic organizations first, and then specifically from the biggest chamber on P.E.I. What kind of feedback did you get from the members on that populist rhetoric inside the tax proposal or tax consultation document itself? Typically, when these documents are put out, they have very little edits made to them afterwards because they're well thought out, well thought through by finance department officials, but this one was different. I saw the Atlantic chamber in P.E.I. using quite a few letters and submissions to different MPs and ministers on this issue.