Finance committee  In response to the question about whether the Canada recovery benefit or other COVID benefits can have an impact on the amount that a recipient would ultimately receive for the Canada child benefit, the answer is, yes, they could have an impact. It's calculated based on adjusted family net income and other factors such as the number of children.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in normal systems, it's standard practice that there's an opportunity to apply refunds against amounts outstanding in the same revenue line. With the COVID benefits, as the commissioner stated, in October 2022 we had the ability to apply T1 refunds, individual refunds, to outstanding COVID debts.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Commissioner Hamilton is absolutely correct in that it's very challenging to identify, with any degree of certainty, how many individuals are not filing, but I'd just like to highlight two things that we've been doing. For over five years now, for a number of years, we've been working with Statistics Canada to conduct what we call linkage studies, where we actually can discreetly link up citizens who complete the census with tax data.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we've been conducting this study and we're in the process of conducting it a second time with Statistics Canada, based on the 2001 census. The benefit outreach program that I referred to has been going on for five years. We've issued over 1.3 million letters to citizens, which has resulted in over $40 million in refunds being generated, almost $16 million in Canada child benefit payments, and just over $17 million in GST payments.

Health committee  Mr. Chair, I'm happy to respond to questions specifically regarding validation, but I have nothing further to add based on the response from my colleague from CMHC.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. For the purposes of the act, adjusted income has the same meaning as in section 122.6 of the Income Tax Act. It refers to the total of all amounts of income received for the year for the individual or the person who was the individual's cohabiting spouse or common-law partner, namely family, which is spouse, plus spouse/partner.

Health committee  Mr. Chair, if I may, for the vast majority of citizens, the adjusted family net income represents line 23600 of the tax return. It's essentially family net income minus any universal child care benefit—the UCCB—and registered disability savings plan—the RDSP—income received, plus any amounts that were repaid.

Health committee  Mr. Chair, it's a definition that's used in the Income Tax Act. As the Canada dental benefit is being pursued and it's linked to the Income Tax Act, the same definition applies.