Let me come to your question now.
I reviewed some of the discussion in last week's hearing; I had the privilege to do that thanks to whoever sent me the transcript. I saw that you had raised this question before.
My annotated version--you can see all the red and green tabs--has a lot of tabs related to the tax provisions on which I have consulted our American tax folks. A lot of the provisions here are not common in the United States, but I've been told, as you were told, that they are common here in Canada, so it is hard for me to address the question in terms of what the normal tax law is in Canada.
Some of these provisions seem to us quite draconian. Documents and records of companies are subject to search and seizure, sometimes on pretexts that have really nothing to do, it seems, with the enforcement of the provisions of this act, which are supposed to be about the export tax. But some people have said that's just normal in Canadian tax law. If they're normal in Canadian tax law, why they have to be recited here again in this bill I also don't know, but I'm told that's normal too.
The best I can answer is that it is fairly alien to American practice and experience as to tax provisions.
On your question of piercing the corporate veil, some of these items seem draconian, and they seem invasive as to searches of records and in the difficulty of maintaining proprietary rights over some of these records that in American tax law would be more protected. In the end, it is a matter both for this committee and Parliament as to the tax provisions that are passed here. I don't think I can enlighten beyond that.