Finance committee  Yes, I heard that.

Finance committee  The overall tax burden on Canadians will go down for a combination of reasons, including increases to the basic personal amount, the Canada employment tax credit, and changes to the GST.

Finance committee  It's not in this bill. It's one of the measures that's proposed to be included in the second budget implementation bill.

Finance committee  In the budget.

Finance committee  If the amendments that are in this bill don't pass, it will default to 16%.

Finance committee  No. The notice of ways and means motion has been tabled with the economic statement. As I said, if it became clear to the government of the day that it was not going to pass, you'd be in a situation where neither the October statement nor the 2006 budget would pass, in which case you'd default to the existing state of the Income Tax Act.

Finance committee  It would automatically default to the state of the law as it was, which was 16%.

Finance committee  If it became clear that Parliament was not going to pass those amendments then the returns that had been filed would have to be reassessed.

Finance committee  If this budget did not pass?

Finance committee  You would then be left with the state of the law as it was before this budget.

Finance committee  It will default to 16%, not 15%.

Finance committee  I'm sorry. It will effectively default to the state of the law as it was before at 16%, and 15.5% is less than that.

Finance committee  The Canada Revenue Agency has administered the law on the assumption that the notice of ways and means motion proposed in the fall update would pass, until such point as it became apparent that it would not.

Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  That's correct, although there are other provisions that would mitigate against it, for example, the Canadian employment tax credit.