Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Minister, for your attendance today.
First of all, I want to thank you for your good management of the economy. My constituents thank you for keeping the election promises in relation to the volunteer firefighters tax credit, and I thank you for reducing my personal taxes, as well as those of my constituents. I appreciate that very much. The children's arts tax credit is especially popular in northern Alberta, as is the hiring credit for small business.
It seems clear that you and your department respect Canadian taxpayers. In particular, you've taken the initiative to close numerous tax loopholes, as well as phase out the direct subsidy of political parties. That, of course, was part of our commitment.
When I first came to this place, and later on, I found it shocking that taxpayers were giving money to political parties without their say-so, and political parties could do whatever they wanted with that. I want to say congratulations on that. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation was recently quoted as saying that eliminating the per vote subsidy is a major victory. It's a major win for taxpayers and for democratic reform.
I wonder if you can describe to us how that is a major win for taxpayers--I think it's fairly obvious--and how much that major win is year over year. How does the phase-out of this particular subsidy work?