Mr. Chairman, my colleague from South Shore has raised the same issue. If woodlot owners were given the capacity to deduct expenses for silviculture in the same way as the farming community would actually do, it would enable them to offset the cost of managing woodlots in environmentally sustainable ways.
Quite often, when woodlots are passed on from an inheritance perspective, it may be more cost effective because they cannot pay the inheritance tax and the capital gains tax to clear-cut the woodlots. They have no other choice. It is a very perverse way from an environmental perspective.
I know the Minister of Finance has been amenable to looking at that, so I would say to the hon. minister that this is an issue of public policy of which I know the Minister of Finance is aware. He seems to be amenable to doing something, and we would seek his help to try to move that particular yardstick.