Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm John Feeley, vice-president of member relevance at the Canadian Medical Association. I'm joined here today by Dr. Rick Davies, who is a professor in the division of cardiology at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and managing partner of the Assoc

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  I think you have to recognize that they are all essentially in a small business. Some are solo business practitioners, some are in a group where they are sharing costs, and some have actually set up partnerships because they are pooling their income or revenue to accomplish an ac

Finance committee  It goes back to the survey that we did of our members. I think one of the disturbing findings that we didn't anticipate in the survey was the response from medical residents that, if they did not see an opportunity within group structures, they would leave. It would have a steeri

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  In both cases, we spoke to actual physicians in these groups. We put them in touch with our people at MD Management, so they worked with accountants and tax specialists to figure out what the actual impact would be, based on the federal-provincial change. That's how we arrived at

Finance committee  I can't really speak to Finance Canada's scenarios because they didn't share the details with us. We would be happy to talk to them about that, but we didn't have access to it.

Finance committee  MD Financial.

Finance committee  Indeed.

Finance committee  I can speak to it generally, but Dr. Davies works at the University of Ottawa so he could speak to it more specifically.

Finance committee  Basically what our research is telling us and what our members have told us is they are pooling their resources, and in some cases they have additional funding coming into the university directed to support teaching. There are members of the group who are doing more teaching. So

Finance committee  The average income would be about.... Well, gross income before overhead would be approximately $350,000.

Finance committee  No, we're not advocating for a tax break at all. We're advocating to have some tax equity between different structures that are supplying needed health care services to Canadians.

Finance committee  That is correct.