Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The bill before us is very important. Since being elected, I have met quite a few owners of family businesses, farming and non-farming, who were having a horrible time of things. It's a serious matter and they were in deep trouble. We've heard from a group of witnesses, and they all told us that we needed to forge ahead and that the situation made no sense. I know that it's a complex matter from the legislative and other standpoints. We certainly need to take the points that you've made into consideration. I wouldn't want to just hear that it's all very complicated and then find that nothing is being done. It's an urgent problem and the bill should be adopted.
From my point of view, as it's written, Bill C-208 would deal with the situation. After that we could examine the Hansard transcriptions, the debates in the House and the committee evidence to understand the intent of the bill. It's been said many times that we wouldn't want this bill to provide an opportunity for people who are cheating to avoid paying taxes. Its purpose is to facilitate intergenerational business transfers. Government regulations could spell out the details, and if there are problems, we could deal with those afterwards. But it's really essential to forge ahead.
The Quebec finance minister, Mr. Eric Girard, came to the Grand Joliette chamber of commerce before the pandemic, and said he couldn't understand why it hadn't been dealt with in Ottawa yet, when it had in Quebec.
Gentlemen, you've been working on that and you've been able to look at the model used in Quebec, which has guidelines.
What's the problem with what Quebec is doing? Why are you so afraid that we're going to go ahead and adopt a similar bill?