Thank you. This is a really important subject. It's obviously one that was unexpected in the sense that the U.S made significant changes.
The U.S. tax code, prior to their changes, was largely one that had fallen behind other OECD countries. Canada had already moved to lower corporate tax rates prior to the United States. We found ourselves in a situation prior to those changes and, in fact, afterwards as well, where we had a very competitive corporate tax rate. Our corporate tax rate, when you add in provincial and federal taxes, is roughly around 27% for large corporations and obviously a lot lower for small corporations, where we have the lowest small business tax rates among G7 countries.
When the U.S. changed their rates from an average of about 35% down to about 26%, they effectively changed them to be in the same zone as Canada. Of course, it made things more advantageous for companies in the United States. They broadened the base at the same time and added more things that were considered taxable, but importantly, they allowed companies to accelerate the depreciation of capital investments on a rapid basis. That created a situation where they were more competitive than Canada was with those changes.
That was what led us, in our fall economic statement, to accelerating the ability to depreciate capital cost investments for businesses in Canada. We did it slightly differently than the United States did. We added more categories, or we have more categories that are able to be depreciated, meaning that the analysis that we took on concluded that the ability for the next investment in Canada by an organization would mean there would be a 5% advantage on accelerating that depreciation in Canada versus the United States, allowing us to be in a competitive spot for new investments that should create jobs and help our economy to grow.