Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of confusion about the foreign property rule. Some people say that Canadians should be permitted to invest their retirement funds in any portfolio they wish. Of course Canadians can do that. No one is preventing them from doing that, but when it comes to getting a subsidy through the tax system, I think it makes for good domestic policy to set certain limits. The government has acted on this. It was 10% some years ago. It was increased to 20%, then 25% and is now 30%. In fact, the domestic returns have in many cases exceeded the returns in the offshore markets. A sound and prudent portfolio manager would take that into account and would decide where to invest the funds.
I do not really agree that it should be totally wide open. As to whether the government would want to increase it beyond 30%, I would support that, but I do not think opening it up completely would have the support of most Canadians.