In fact, I'm going to be careful. Yes, there were two. And to be honest, I would say that that has been the cause of some confusion for the public.
First, the budget imposed a tax. It is the provinces' right to impose a tax. You can be in favour of a regressive tax or not, but a tax is a tax, and the provinces are free to tax in their areas of jurisdiction.
So that doesn't concern the tax, which is indeed included in the budget. It concerns the idea that is currently the focus of particular government attention: the idea is ultimately to charge a deductible of $250. And based on the number of medical visits, the deductible would be deducted from that.
My mother, who saw this on TV, asked me whether it was true that she would be required to pay $25 per medical visit. I told her that that was not yet the case.
Let's say it is the case. People sometimes look at the provinces' jurisdiction over health. Here, however, we're talking about an agreement. There's a signature at the bottom of the page: the provinces do this and the federal government does that, including equalization payments.
What would be the effect on equalization payments of a province that decided—and this isn't yet the case—to charge $25 or $50? What is confusing in the examples is that it was $25 in the first year of the tax. So there were two different $25 figures being bandied about, which confused a lot of people. So there's a part entitled “user fees”, that is to say an amount that appears directly on the income tax return—not in the doctor's office—based on the number of medical visits.
Let's say we collect—I'm making up a figure—$600 in one year. Would it be taken into account in calculating the Canada Health Transfer payment?