Thank you, sir.
To clarify, it's not just the challenge of attracting foreign capital into Canada as we saw in the earlier Barton report not that many years back; we also have a problem with the outflow of Canadian capital. Canadians aren't investing in Canada, nor are global investors. That is the crux of the problem.
We were very surprised that there wasn't even a message that the capital cost allowance that had been in place would be extended for at least the two years covering this pandemic, because again, if you have a set-up with a seven-year window for one of these large plants that you're about to build and suddenly you've lost two years, you can't count that time in the business case when you're trying to go to your investors and say here's why we should invest in Canada.
As we know, south of the border, accelerated capital cost is a permanent measure. It's not a temporary measure. It doesn't have a finite window. Therefore, it's not a matter of treating Canadians even better than elsewhere. At a minimum, let's at least match the closest competition we have, and that's the United States. It was a very positive message and measure to have put the accelerated capital cost allowance in place through that earlier fall economic statement, but we don't get the benefit of that because of COVID. We had soundly expected that this would get acknowledged and the benefit would be extended. We would encourage that to be done with haste, and even again, to relook at the idea of making this permanent.
As you know, anything that reduces the upfront cost to capital is a winner when it comes to attracting investment, and that's a really important mechanism.
Thank you.