Again, thank you to the witnesses for coming.
Mr. Lavoie, thank you for talking about repatriating products. You're absolutely right, Canada has some huge potential.
I have to correct something you said earlier. When we talk about SR and ED, which isn't even in this budget implementation act, the savings that we have garnished from the SR and ED we've put into venture capital, so that we can have these manufacturing companies develop products that will in fact start to come out the doors of Canadian companies and compete better with China.
I want to say for the record, when we're talking about economies, that Canada's economy is about $1.4 trillion. China's $7.3 trillion; they don't need our help. We're going to help Canadian manufacturers, Canadian companies, with the changes that are proposed in the BIA.
I do have to clear up some confusion on the credit union stuff, if you would allow me.
First, our government reduced the small business rate to 11% from 12%, which of course was to incent many small businesses to do better and to grow in a tough economy. The way the deduction is working is that the small business rate of 11% normally applies to the first $500,000 of income, then it gets phased out as the business gets larger.
Until recently, credit unions had been entitled to 11% on all their income, no matter how much they had. Some of our credit unions are making a lot more than $500,000 a year. As a result, we're saying with these changes that they should get the small business rate on the same amount as all other small businesses are, and no better. But they still get the 11% on the first $500,000, which means—to clear up the confusion—that this is a tax change for large credit unions, not small credit unions.
We need to clear that up because we seem to be saying that all credit unions are going to be affected, but they are not all going to be affected. Isn't that so, Mr. Phillips?