the attention of the government. In the March 2004 federal budget, Liberal Finance Minister Ralph Goodale had tried to prohibit pension funds from investing more than 1% of their assets in business trusts or owning more than 5% of any one trust. Powerful funds led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, which at the time had a significant stake in the Yellow Pages Income Fund, fought the proposed measure; the government backed off and suspended the restrictions. On October 31, 2006, Goodale's successor, Conservative Jim Flaherty announced a new 34% tax on income trust distributions in a bid to stem the growing number of companies that were converting to trusts. Since January 2011, all Canadian income trusts (except REITs) are considered as Specified Investment Flow-Through (SIFT) entities that are subject to double taxation at a rate approximately equal to corporate income tax rates. Suspension of advance tax rulings On September 8, 2005, the Canadian Department of Finance issued a white paper suggesting that the trusts had cost it at least Can$300 million in tax losses the preceding year, with provincial governments possibly losing another $300 million. The markets barely reacted and on September 13, Gordon Nixon, CEO of the Royal Bank of Canada, mentioned in passing that he was not opposed to Canada's largest bank converting into a trust. One week later on September 19, the Department of Finance announced that it was suspending advance tax rulings – essential for investor confidence – on future trusts. The resulting uncertainty caused an immediate slump with the trust market losing approximately $9 billion in market capitalization during the following week. This caused CanWest Global Communications to reduce its proposed $700 million IPO spin-off to $550 million. CI Fund Management also showed hesitation regarding its planned trust conversion. Previous plans by ACE Aviation Holdings to spin off Air Canada Jazz into a trust were suspended indefinitely. "Traditional" Canadian REITs, once content to ride the trust boom, tried to distance themselves from the new business trusts, to avoid regulatory "collateral damage". In the day following the change in working tax policy, the unit price for all income trusts and REITs on the TSX dropped by a median of more than 17% according to the iTrust Report published by TrustInvestor.com and its iTrust Index. Studies by Leslie Hayman, publisher of the Report, indicated that the change in advance tax rulings in 2005 was the most