Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations this morning.
There's an event happening in Ontario today that we haven't talked about. I think we all know the Ontario budget is due to be released later today, and there's been a lot of speculation in the media about possible harmonization of the provincial sales tax with the GST. I was wondering if some of you might comment on that.
I note that in my city of Mississauga, the president and CEO of the Mississauga Board of Trade said in a recent press release, “Harmonization of the Ontario sales tax with the GST will lead to a stronger economy with higher real wages, a higher standard of living, higher productivity, lower business costs, and increased investment”.
I also know that a number of members on this panel have extensively studied the issue, including Mr. Poschmann, who I believe released a report just last week. Mr. Poschmann, you advocated harmonization and noted that “Ontario workers, employers, and consumers, not to mention the rest of Canada, would benefit from an Ontario government decision to implement sales tax reform and to do so without hesitation. The province sorely needs near-term and long-term boosts to its growth and investment outlook, which sales tax reform, with appropriate policy fine-tuning, can deliver.” You went on to say that “putting an end to Ontario's archaic retail sales tax and adopting a value-added tax like the GST would sharply lower the effective tax rate on new business investment and offer the province a much-needed economic boost”.
I wonder if you could give us a short summary of your views on harmonization and also compare it with the past experiences of other provinces that in the 1990s harmonized their provincial sales taxes with GST.