Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity to participate in the finance committee hearings in which the finance minister presented his calculation of the so-called tax leakage. Unfortunately, many of the people, including the Governor of the Bank of Canada, had prepared their speeches prior to hearing the evidence of expert witnesses who demonstrated clearly that there was flawed methodology and incorrect assumptions in the finance minister's presentation.
The facts are that tax revenues on an annual basis will be reduced some $6 billion a year as a result of the private sector, private equity takeovers of income trusts to date.
Since the tax leakage that the finance minister was talking about was only $5 billion, and that was over six years, maybe the member could help to answer how can Canadians determine that in fact losing $6 billion a year is a better scenario than simply losing $5 billion over six years?
It seems to me that tax fairness means that we make sure that everybody is paying their fair share, but certainly that we do not give away all of the tax revenue with respect to income trusts that have been taken over because of this broken promise.