Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for appearing before us today.
Professor Mintz, one of the things I've been talking about a lot, and something I've been studying and working on, is the harmonized sales tax or value-added tax and the benefits of transitioning toward that. I note that it's one of the points in your presentation today.
We've had some discussion here before the committee, which I happen to agree with, that it's often not a matter of the tax rate even, but where you're generating the tax revenue dollars from. So where you're applying it would often determine how you're positioning your economy productivity-wise and whether you're optimizing your tax system.
I do know our government has put in place some incentives for harmonization of taxes, and one of the things we keep coming back to is that we should come up with perhaps a larger subsidy, or create an impetus for that to occur. But one of the things I don't really understand is why this change can't be made revenue-neutral for the provinces. Why can't they transition to a value-added tax without taking an enormous economic hit, especially considering that most tax revenues in the provinces are generated—as with the federal government—by personal income taxes, not through value-added taxes or corporate taxes? It would seem to me that this transition could be made, with the exception of administrative changes, fairly revenue neutral for the provinces.