Thank you, Mr. Bains.
I want to say a quick hello to Ms. Jones. It's been a long time since we sat across the table chatting about taxation and things.
I wanted to talk about productivity again.
Mr. Greco, I'll aim this at you. A chap by the name of Peter Phillips, who's a distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Saskatchewan's school of public policy, wrote something in The Globe and Mail a few days ago. I don't know if you're familiar with that. I think it's a good place to look. I don't expect, actually, to have an answer to this. On the record, it's intelligence that gives us a spot to look at.
He said, “Let's start with productivity.” He mentioned two professors at McMaster University. They concluded, these two professors, that Canada's stagnation in productivity in the past 20 years is “almost entirely because of the oil industry.”
Where they came up with that, I don't know, but it's worth looking at. The article said that when they “netted out the oil components of the economy and looked at productivity in the rest of the economy, they found it rose at about the same rate as in the past and compared [favourably] with the [United States].” Again, it's something to look at.
One thing I would like your reflection on, Mr. Greco, is whether there should be some rules about rollover. You realize a capital gain, but you turn right around and you reinvest it. What kind of advice would you give to the government about how to construct those rules so that somebody who's making an honest effort to build a business in using the proceeds of their investments, etc., doesn't necessarily get swept up in this?