We asked for information from the Department of Finance—well, from the Minister of Finance and her officials—as well as from Minister Champagne from Innovation, Science and Economic Development. I believe we got all the information that we were told exists and all of the information that we requested.
There was nothing in the information package we got that suggested that the government has any plans to make that assistance non-taxable. Under current legislation, it's clear that the assistance the government plans to provide—as per the contracts we've seen, as per the statements that have been made publicly and as per legislation, as I said—is taxable under Canadian tax legislation.
We also verified with officials from both departments that our interpretation is the correct interpretation. I am quite confident from the information we got, and based on our interpretation of the legislation, that the assistance the government will provide will indeed be taxable.
If you put that together with the stated aim of the government to ensure that the assistance provided to Volkswagen in Canada will be comparable to what it would receive in the U.S., where it's non-taxable, these two elements together clearly lead us to the conclusion that the amount will be $16.3 billion, or very close to that, under current parameters.
That being said, if the government has plans to amend legislation to make that assistance non-taxable, it's the first time I've heard about it. That was not information provided to us in our information files.