From a methodological standpoint, I would just like to say that that comparison takes repayment of investment into consideration. For every dollar that a large company spends on R&D—we did not look at the situation of small companies—how much money is returned to the tax system? In fact, the tax system has two factors, the corporate tax rate and the tax credit. A 20% tax credit with a 30% tax rate is more favourable than a 20% credit with a 50% tax rate. So you have to look at both.
In 2008, when our tax rate was higher, we had a 20% tax credit under the SR&ED program. For every dollar that a large company spent on R&D, 18¢ was returned to it through the federal tax credit. In 2012, this year, as a result of the reductions in the corporate tax rate, the return is slightly larger for the reason I mentioned, that is to say that our tax rate has fallen, but our tax credit has remained the same.
Other countries have also taken rigorous action, either by lowering their corporate tax rate or increasing the R&D tax credit. This means that countries have been more rigorous than we have on these two aspects and that they have moved ahead of us.
The 5-percentage-point reduction in the tax credit will result in a repayment of investment in the order of 13.6¢ per dollar invested in R&D. I believe that is the figure that appears in our report. That is less than what it was in 2008, even though the corporate tax rate was higher.
In our opinion, this will take us to 17th place. As we discussed earlier, a rank is just a rank: 17th, 13th or 9th. However, what is a much greater concern for us, and what we are seeing, is that the countries that will now be ahead of us will not just be industrialized countries; they will increasingly be what we call developing or emerging countries.