Firstly, Mr. Chair, thank you for inviting me here.

This is tremendous. I'm so excited to live in a country where we have this opportunity, where people like me, regular citizens who have an issue, can come talk to people and be listened to. I'm very proud to be Canadian.

I'm an owner of Oakhurst Farm, with my wife, and we've been working on the farm for about 32 years. We are second generation. It is considered a small to medium-sized farm based on Mr. Larkin's description of a farm....

I'm sorry. I'm mildly nervous.

I am here today to discuss how capital gains changed my plans, my life. When I was 22 years old, my wife and I started investing in our future, putting a little money away and doing all the things we were told to do. We succession-planned our farm from her parents, which took about 10 years, in large part because there were things that just had to be decided—her father died along the way, so we had to deal with that.

We paid down our mortgage and invested in our business. We raised our two children on the farm. It was a wonderful place for them to live, but at this point we're empty nesters and our children do not want to succession-plan the farm. They grew up in the life and saw how difficult it was, so we're in a situation where we would like to scale things back, think about our retirement and slow down.

We put our farm up for sale. It was looking quite promising that we were going to sell it, and then this capital gains tax change came into effect. Our plan, with our financial experts, which we had in place for quite a few years, was no longer a valid plan. They informed me, “This is not something that you are financially able to do right now.”

I'm just here to let you know that this is a real problem and something we are genuinely experiencing. I just want to thank you for the opportunity to tell you.

Thank you very much.

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