Finance committee  What we're expecting is that on balance across the economy reducing the cost to businesses can be expected to create incentives for growing, including hiring people. That is on one hand what we said. I don't think that necessarily is contradictory with the other statement, and it

Finance committee  Again, here the challenge is the transition between the one specific example and the aggregate number. That's why we're saying that in the aggregate that measure is going to result in a cost reduction across 780,000 businesses of $550 million, and that in aggregate across the eco

Finance committee  The EI operating account is the net revenue from EI premiums and the expenditure against the EI programs. This measure is going to be reducing the revenue from EI premiums, so it will have an impact on the net balance of the operating account. I don't know if that answers that

Finance committee  Are you asking if there's going to be a measure where...? Actually, I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure. I'm going to try to be as clear as I can, and let me know if it doesn't work out.

Finance committee  It's actually going against EI premium revenue, so it's not leaving the EI operating account. It's accounted for in the EI operating account, so that is a bit clearer. Yes, it will be taken into account directly against the operating account balance.

Finance committee  That's something I can look into doing, absolutely, yes.

Finance committee  Absolutely. As with most initiatives, it's fairly difficult to isolate the forecasted incremental impact of the credit on job creation across the country. Many other factors also contribute to job creation by small businesses. For example, small business will benefit from improve

Finance committee  That's actually a statement of general fact. In general, it's very hard to put a specific job creation number on a policy measure. It can be done. There are risks associated with it, but it can be done. What I'm saying is that in this specific case, this is not something that th

Finance committee  There are a number of reasons that come into play when Finance determines whether we're going to embark into a quantitative project and try to produce an estimate for a certain measure. That would be one factor. There are a number of other factors.

Finance committee  Just to be very clear, the CFIB number that's going around is a number about job creation. My comments earlier about the threshold effect may be similar to what the CFIB has put out. I'm not sure actually what their comments were, but that was not a CFIB analysis.

Finance committee  Yes, and the exact response was that on balance across the economy small businesses that are flourishing are expected to expand based on a number of factors, and that this measure is not expected to be creating a disincentive for growth.

Finance committee  I don't want to go there. As you know, I am not in a position to speculate or comment on this matter. It is therefore very difficult for me to tell you about the issues addressed in the document. However, I can confirm that, as for all other measures, we have offered briefings

Finance committee  Your comments are interesting. I can give you clear answers to a lot of your questions. Earlier, I talked about the number of businesses that would be affected. We are talking about 780,000 businesses across the country, which is 90% of the businesses that pay EI premiums.

Finance committee  That was brought in last year.

Finance committee  To be very exact, they're going to use this mechanism to compute the EI premium rate for 2017. Now, I just want to be very clear that when you're talking about the clock starting to count, the amount that will have to be brought back to balance does include whatever surplus may b