Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I just want to follow up a bit on Mr. Patzer's questions, just to make sure everyone's clear on this thing.
The Liberal minister of revenue in 2023 changed the rules and allowed credit card processing fees to be included in the GST and HST charges, when they weren't before. Is that correct? Is that what you confirmed?
This happened about the same time that the announcement was made in May 2023 by the Minister of Finance that we would have this miraculous reduction in credit card payment processing fees for small businesses. Both happened at the same time.
I accept what you said, absolutely. Somebody has to pay. This is a service that's being offered. The question is where it gets charged. How does it flow through? As part of that change, small businesses were allowed to do something that they weren't allowed to do before, which is to pass that fee on to consumers on the transaction, and the GST and HST could be paid on that.
Do you have any idea what the estimate was that this new revenue source would present to the federal government in HST revenue?