Hon. Brent Cotter: Senator Tannas, I have two or three questions. As you know, I’m not in opposition to the matter being considered in a timely way, and I want to state that publicly and on the record.

I would invite you to offer your thoughts on this dimension of it. In the lawsuit that was brought against the federal government, the judge found that large exemption in relation to federal taxes had been — which was also to run for a very long time — taken away by federal legislation over the years. Are you offended by that happening in the way in which you’ve just described this seeming to be unfair to a corporation that made a contract a long time ago? I guess I’m saying that the Government of Canada made the same contract with respect to itself but then took away CP’s rights over the decades.

I have another question after this, but I would be interested in your thoughts.

Senator Cotter: Thank you. I appreciate the answer. I actually hope that we’ll be asked twice more. In fact, we might be the initiators of it. We might ask others to do what we want.

I would offer this context. The federal government seems to have gotten out of its obligations with this tax exemption vis‑à‑vis CP. My guess is that the Government of Saskatchewan and the Government of Manitoba and the Government of Alberta would have done the same thing if they could have, but they are kind of handcuffed by the constitutional constraint. There is an equity that cuts across all four of the folks that got sued, but three of those folks have their hands tied behind their back by this constitutional constraint.

It seems that if we continue to be sympathetic to that constraint, we’re basically saying we’re sympathetic to CP not paying its share of taxes in these three provinces for a very long time. While it’s not a purely legal kind of interpretation — you seem to be, strangely enough, embracing the legal framework and I’m wandering into the political sphere — we really should be looking for the fairest solution. That might require some dialogue. Are you open to that as a way of thinking it through?