Mark Carnage

David Sweet, MP

There is no question that the income trust model may not have been appropriate for all businesses or sectors. Unfortunately the problem was addressed with a sledge hammer approach without any grandfathering provisions that could have saved the equity market carnage that was inflicted on unsuspecting Canadians relying on existing trusts for retirement. Harper has been caught in a lie because there was no grandfathering provision or selective thinking with regard to industries where the trust model makes sense such as the energy sector.

No one objects to proactive thinking in government to protect revenue flow but this decision appears to have backfired as the takeovers continue and future revenue flows disappear anyway. As for USA, there are sectors that continue as MLPs and some of these guys are the ones scooping up some of our good energy operations. So the Americans used some selectivity and we did not in curtailing the expansion of these structures across other industries.

David, the arguments about tax burden and fairness have never held up from the perspective of experts outside the government ranks and so we continue to beg to differ on this one. There is a fine line between acting clearly and decisively and acting impulsively without adequate information. It would have been better for our Government and for Canadians to have put a moratorium on new trust issues until adequate consultation with the private sector was done.

There is no way Flaherty should have recommended the move without wider inputs. This is where he broke with good process built over decades and lost the trust of those in the know outside the Government. Those who were left out of the process can only view the move as an exercise of arrogance, almost as big as when Harper poked Dion in the eye last Winter and almost lost control of the Government to a highly undesirable coalition.

I appreciate your time taken to respond to my concern, however, the points of the response are the same party line arguments that we have been hearing ever since the faux pas was made. I’m disappointed that there is no interest to address this matter from my constituency and I believe that with time the true impact of what was done will be even more negative than it is already showing and will be the legacy o f Steven Harper, Jim Flaherty and the Conservatives. Good leadership means admitting when mistakes are made and taking corrective action. Denial is not.

Again, David, thank you for responding

Regards

Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx, CA