Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question because we have to take the best shots that anybody could give and try to lay it out. In Ontario, with the harmonization, it is going to get its compensation. It is also reducing personal taxes at the same time and there are exemptions to what will be taxed under harmonization.
My understanding is, and it is subject to check, that about 70% of Ontarians will actually be better off in terms of cash in their pockets than they are under the existing system in terms of the burden on individuals.
Even more importantly, the impact to the business community, particularly the manufacturing sector, is going to be enormous because the GST has an input tax credit which allows only the end user or the end payer to actually be the one to pay the GST. Someone pays it when they buy a raw material, they get an input tax credit, they charge the GST, and it just travels along.
The PST is not the same. There is not that same credit. That means that all along the line in the manufacturing industry for instance PST is being accumulated. It is just like the old federal sales tax. That is the reason why the federal sales tax which was applied at the wholesale level was eliminated. It was because there was this compounding of taxes within production. By the time it got to the consumer, there was this major tax component.
It is the same thing. There are going to be benefits not only to taxpayers but also to business and industry.