Finance committee  But don't take his word for it. Groups coalesced even before there was any benefit. It was for the benefit of patients and for health care delivery.

Finance committee  What you're suggesting is correct if you have all physicians providing exactly the same service. For instance, if each family doctor provided the same service and billed the same amount and worked the same hours, it would work fine. The reality is that medicine has evolved tremen

Finance committee  My understanding of tax policy is that taxes are not just intended to get money for the government. There's a second part to tax policy, and that is to influence the behaviour of people. We do that all the time. We use tax policy to encourage people to go to remote areas, or we u

Finance committee  Certainly the proposal of this legislation would work counter to the provinces.

Finance committee  I absolutely agree. I trained in London, Ontario. It's a great centre. University Hospital is a wonderful hospital, and I benefited from the teaching.

Finance committee  No, it's Canada-wide. I'm shocked as well. I would have hoped to have a barrage of physicians, but the reality is that everybody is really busy providing patient care. There aren't enough doctors. There aren't enough specialists. The reason why I'm here—I'm the alternate—is that

Finance committee  It was certainly not modest for physicians. I don't agree with that. I'm not sure of the figure you used.

Finance committee  If that were the case, I wouldn't be here. You can be sure of that. Our figures are significantly different. Ray can speak to this, but I believe they're in the $30,000 to $50,000 range.

Finance committee  I'm not sure it's the key to the argument. First of all, the way you use salary is something we as physicians are constantly fighting. We bill for services we provide so we're not salaried employees. We have no benefits, no pension. If you use $200,000 as gross income, it would

Finance committee  Yes. That's correct. I would like to make a number of points, but I will try to make it brief and use an example.

Finance committee  That's fine. I'll use the example of institutions that do research and teaching. These large groups that work in those types of hospitals function as a group, and the group supports the individual who is involved in teaching and research. Money is short everywhere, but there's n

Finance committee  Could you repeat the question, please?

Finance committee  I didn't speak with government representatives personally.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question and picking out the one thing that doesn't have to do with medicine.

Finance committee  I would describe it this way. In the current setting, in our group we have 12 radiologists. Each of those 12 radiologists is entitled to take advantage of the small business deduction, and there's not an additional deduction for each of those radiologists. Should the legislation