Mr. Speaker, the hon. member will recollect that the testimony of the witnesses said that 10 cases had been dealt with on this particular point, or themes and variations on this point. Five had gone in favour of the taxpayer and five had gone against the taxpayer in favour of the Crown. It is a point of contention.
There is no issue here about double deductions which are illegal. That is not the issue. The way in which the minister has phrased the budget is that all interest will apply. In other words, he has taken a cannon to the entire concept, which I think even the hon. member will realize this. If we cannot deduct interest for acquisition costs, then we are at a severe disadvantage to anyone else with whom we are competing.
At this point, it is five and five. Then there are the files that are resolved outside of the court. The tax officials indicated that they had been having a lot of success in resolving this issue under the general anti-avoidance rule. The general anti-avoidance rule is essentially a large omnibus rule which says if the scheme is only for the purposes of reducing or eliminating tax liability, it is avoidance and the person or corporation will be taxed anyway.
I still would like to see the hon. minister put on the table what precisely he is upset about, give us a break from all this tax unfairness and tax havens nonsense and just say what he means.