There is an important question embedded in your comments, and that's the impact of retail sales tax; I'll go to the impact on manufacturers particularly. In several of our larger provinces, there continues to be a retail sales tax, which punishes manufacturers because there's not the value-added component.
We demonstrate in the budget a desire--the minister has made this point repeatedly--to encourage tax harmonization in Canada so that those provinces, for example Ontario, would move toward a value-added tax, a PST like Quebec's. This would make a significant impact on the competitiveness of Canadian business. To be specific, I spoke earlier about our rate of tax on new business investment going to third. If Ontario and B.C. moved to a VAT, we would have the lowest METR in the G-7 by some considerable margin.
The other point, if I may, is that one of the first things the government said upon arriving was that Canadians pay too much tax. Part of the impact of lowering the GST is clearly just to reduce the tax burden on all Canadians.