Mr. Speaker, maybe a good place to start is to draw a comparison on why it is important to recognize that there is value to the private member's bill that has been brought forward this afternoon and the fact that we should allow the bill to go to committee.
On the one hand, the government representative has just made it very clear that if we take a look at a cost analysis of the implementation of this bill, we are looking at somewhere in the neighbourhood of $60 million. On the other hand, the sponsor of the bill said that the Minister of Finance should, in essence, be rubbing his hands and saying what good fortune we have in this particular bill because the bill will generate a net benefit to the taxpayer in excess of, I believe, $80 million. I believe it was just over $100 million. I suspect, if the truth be known, that it would likely be somewhere in between.
I do not necessarily believe that is and should be the only argument to be made on whether the legislation should be passed. A number of other factors need to be taken into consideration, but what is clear is that there is, no doubt, a question regarding the impact of the legislation from a financial point of view for Canadians. What would it actually be?
We would be in a better position to get an answer to that question if we were able to take it to the committee stage. There we could bring forward individuals, whether they are research analysts or other professionals, possibly from the Department of Finance, to find out what the actual answer is.
All I know is that either the former speaker or the member who introduced the bill has to be wrong. We know that. There is close to a $200 million gap between the two of them. I do believe that there is some merit for us to acknowledge right up front that we really do not necessarily know the facts.
In that sense, I would suggest that we need to take an assessment of what the bill would be able to do—