Mr. Speaker, a Canadian Press dispatch reports that a lobby group representing the interests of wealthy Canadian families, the Canadian Association for Family Enterprise, apparently persuaded the former government last year to extend family trusts, a form of tax shelter.
My question is for the Minister of Finance. Having left family trusts untouched in his budget, can the minister tell us if he too caved in to the pressure from these same lobbyists, after having strongly condemned himself the Conservatives' decision in 1993 to extend this form of abuse which allows wealthy families to shelter hundreds of millions of dollars from taxes each year?