Mr. Speaker, in this case I am really speaking on behalf of the Secretary of State for Financial Institutions who has charge of this. The issue with respect to leasing rules really compares the leasing rate with the rate at which depreciation is permitted. Currently, Canadian built ships are entitled to be written off very rapidly over four years for 100% of the cost.
If one looks at the leasing of assets, generally speaking, the rate of write-off is much slower than that. The comparison to railway cars is often used as an example. It has a 10% declining balance. In other words, one never actually writes the whole thing off. It goes down very gradually over a long period of time.
To combine those two benefits of being able to write off everything over four years, not being willing to move from that formula, and to put on top of it the ability to lease the asset thereby essentially transferring the rapid write-off to another taxpayer, is something that would cause a precedent that other industries would be very interested in. It would be very expensive. I think to date the industry has not made a persuasive case as to why those two tax advantages should be combined uniquely for this industry.