I would likewise offer my thanks to Ms. D'Souza.
I would suggest again that if we don't do something about this tonight, nothing is going to get done about it. It may be the case that within the finance department and the CRA, people on the government bench are able to come up with a better amendment—and this may be the case, because I see a lot of agreement around this table.
Say the government had an amendment that actually dealt with this in a way that they thought was acceptable. Then they might be able to propose an amendment to the legislation in the House by unanimous consent. It seems to me that there's a lot of goodwill around the table. But if we don't pass an amendment, then it will be a non-issue and the government won't do that work. They won't come to the House with anything.
I'm willing to bet that if it's as much of a problem as people on the government bench say it is, they can develop a solution in a timely way and we can get this done properly, but if we pass up the opportunity to make some progress tonight, then we won't see anything done about it at all. That's why I'm quite happy to support amending this legislation in the modified way that we've come to an agreement on, either with Mr. McLean's original language or with the language of the drafter. I have a higher level of comfort with language vetted by the drafter, so that would be my first pick.
I think we need to create a sense of urgency by showing the legislative intention to do something about this problem in respect of dividends. If there's a better answer out there, the government should be telling its folks to develop a better solution within the next few days and bring it to the House. There's nothing we can't do in the House of Commons by unanimous consent.