Finance committee  Thank you very much for the opportunity to present today. The Investment Industry Association was encouraged to put forward a member to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the investment climate and our industry today. I appreciate that opportunity to join you from Calgary.

Finance committee  Yes, there are a number of them. In general, we're in favour of supporting investment in these companies. One of the proposals is a capital gains rollover, which would allow you to take investment dollars out of a sold investment, as long as you put it to work within six months.

Finance committee  I will focus my comments more specifically to Canada because I'm a Canadian practitioner. We certainly have a very unique system in Canada and historically, a very robust market for capitalizing small businesses. What's different here, and certainly in the U.S. from where I have more direct experience, is that we tend to finance companies publicly earlier than they would in the U.S.

Finance committee  I would say that in any initiative there will be pros and cons. I would say with regard to labour-sponsored funds, it's not that it's a bad thing, but it wouldn't be at the top of my list of initiatives to ask how you would kick-start broader investments, more businesses. You want to take away as many restrictions as possible, and the historical rate of return of some labour-sponsored funds have been imperfect, so I don't know that it would attract the capital necessarily that a broader initiative would.

Finance committee  If your comment is that there was a substantial drop, there was. We've seen a bit of a bounce back in 2014 but not to the levels we've had before. We have what is usually a very healthy market, and to lose 25 competitors normally is a good thing. But in my particular case, as I look around the landscape and see 25 competitors go away I ask if there is a fundamental shift, and I believe there is.

Finance committee  We tend to take the view that, as opposed to specific targeted investments to be propped up, it's more to encourage a broader initiative. That would be our view. It's not necessarily the wrong direction. It's simply that we look at it as being very hard for anyone, let alone government, to be able to say this is the one sector in which we're going to be the best in the world.

Finance committee  In fairness, the Investment Industry Association asked me to come to speak on their behalf in pursuit of positive initiatives. Being an Albertan, my view might not be the same as Ian Russell's on this particular topic, so I'm going to defer comment and allow Ian to answer the question.

Finance committee  Okay.

Finance committee  It's anecdotal and it's hard to give you hard facts. When I was asked to come down here, I talked to a number of colleagues in the industry and said, “You know, this is the proposal the investment industry is putting forward. What are your clients saying?” When I talked to a retail broker, he said, “You know, I've got clients sitting on a million dollar capital gain in this stock.

Finance committee  They don't want to sell. Maybe they should sell, maybe they know they should sell, but there will be a big tax paid if they do.

Finance committee  I don't have the number.