Mr. Speaker, the experience of Canadian Pacific which has been operating as a private shareholder driven company since the last century is such that there is no indication of any interest to the extent that we should be concerned about foreign ownership.
What I am far more worried about and what the government is concerned about is in order to have a successful issue of this size, we are of a mind and of the advice we have received both domestically and internationally that the issue is just too big for Canadian investors to take up. We feel that protection for the future of CN is really far more important in the context of our restriction on 15 per cent ownership for any individual or corporation.
The important thing here that everyone should keep in mind is this is going to be the single largest transaction of its kind in Canadian history. We are trading on a global basis. This railroad has to be competitive in the global economy. We think that restricting foreign ownership would not give the kind of signal that we believe is important, that is, that Canadians want to do business with everybody around the world. We are confident that as is the case with CP, CN will be retained in a majority way in Canadian hands.