Mr. Speaker, the member has raised some extremely good points particularly with regard to the family trust issues. Prior to becoming a member and as a chartered accountant, I used to work for a couple of clients who had these arrangements. They are not illegal, but the avoidance of taxes or the reduction of taxes can be very substantial for the highest income earning Canadians.
In a speech given by the member for Peterborough, he said that one of the objectives of this bill was to maintain the integrity of the tax base. He also talked about income trusts.
In terms of maintaining the integrity of the tax base, I would ask the member to comment on the income trust broken promise, and whether or not it appears the government thought this through in terms of the impacts on investors and indeed on the consequential sell-off of income trusts through private equity takeovers. This has been estimated to now cost Canada the loss of about $6 billion of revenue each and every year. That is way more than the differential in the tax burden between corporations and income trusts. This does not seem to be protecting the integrity of the tax base.
I wonder if the member is aware of the impact of the lost revenue on the takeover of income trusts. Should we not be pursuing some protections to ensure that this kind of hemorrhaging of the tax base does not continue?