It's an excellent question, and you're right. You hear calls for this repeatedly, but when you scratch below the surface and ask for details, you don't necessarily get information on exactly what the objective should be.
Our view is that it has to be comprehensive, meaning that you're not just looking at corporate tax. You're not just looking at personal tax, or consumption tax. You have to look across the board. We have not taken a look at the balance of federal government revenues since that last review in the 1960s. Are we taxing the right things? Are we taking in the right amount of tax from companies, as opposed to individuals? That's the first part. It absolutely has to be comprehensive.
Second, it has to be about simplification. I was speaking with a retired financial official recently, who had worked in the tax branch, and who can no longer do his own personal income taxes. That's a concern. If a tax expert can't do their own taxes, I think we have a problem with the system.
We need simplification, and to look at ways to make it easy for Canadians to file, and easy for corporations to file, and go through the audit process, as well. There's a huge piece of work to be done there. Some countries are way ahead of the curve with respect to digitalization of the tax system. That has to be a big piece of it.
Finally, it's going to mean looking at tax expenditures and determining which ones are actually achieving their desired objectives. The one I always raise is the small business deduction. It's one of the most expensive tax credits in our system. Reams of evidence suggest that it is not efficient in doing what it's supposed to do, which is support small business. That's just one example. We have to look at every single tax credit out there and determine whether it's necessary.