Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This situation is indeed somewhat uncomfortable. I was surprised to hear in the House that this bill was referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade in view of the fact that its nature and its major impact have to do with financial matters.
We support on principle this Senate bill. However, we would have liked clarification on some aspects. In my view, we should be able to get answers rather quickly on a number of questions. If it was referred to the Standing Committee on International Trade, it is probably because the Standing Committee on Finance did not have time to deal with it and some aspects of the bill must be implemented early next year.
I am not opposed to this because the bill corrects some truly aberrant situations. However, a few questions arise considering that this bill could have a much wider impact than one might think, and we need clarification in this regard.
While I do not want to drag out our consideration of the bill, there is a need to set aside a minimum amount of time in order to quickly resolve the issue based on the information that will be provided by the relevant officials and experts on tax matters affecting the two countries.
My proposal is to deal with this quickly, but how much time do we have to do that? Let us set an agenda going backwards. Let us set a deadline, for example Thursday next, to deal with this matter, if we still have time.
I do not really appreciate Mr. Menzies telling us that the bill was drafted by smart people and that we should pass it without question. I do not doubt it was, but we nevertheless might want clarification on some aspects. It can be done very quickly if smart people appear as witnesses.
