Mr. Speaker, the hon. member leads off debate on this important issue today and he suggests that we have a scandal. The auditor general has reviewed the issue. The Standing Committee on Finance has reviewed the issue. The hon. member has spent 20 minutes or so introducing us to the issue in the House. He suggests that it is a scandal but all that he has done has asked questions.
It is a little too late in his remarks to do it but perhaps a subsequent member will address this. However, I wish that someone would please outline what element of the issue constitutes a scandal. I put this to him and I ask for his reaction.
The advance ruling procedure that was used does not create any new law or any new rights. It is simply a decision by the department on what the tax law was at the time.
If this particular trust had simply changed its domicile without seeking an advance ruling, I put it to him: Would not the department have come to the same conclusion in doing an assessment or making the decision not to do an assessment after the change in
domicile had taken place? It would have come to the same conclusion that the tax law permitted the change in domicile without the deemed dispositions that would otherwise have taken place.
Where is the scandal? If there is a problem it may be in the existing tax law. Unless the member can point to a problem, I suggest to him that an advance ruling would have had the same effect as an assessment would have had after the change in domicile of this trust had taken place.