Finance committee  The final decider for statistical items will be the chief statistician and the deputy minister of Employment and Social Development.

Finance committee  Statistics Canada is responsible for the statistical methodology and working closely with ESDC officials to determine what should be in the basket. For example—

Finance committee  For example, say we know that there needs to be a measure for transportation, as I think I spoke about a couple of weeks ago. The question of whether there should be a transportation measure in the basket is a policy question. Once it's determined that there should be a measure of transportation, then that will go to Statistics Canada to determine if that should be a Ford Focus, a Cavalier, another type of vehicle, or if it should be the weighted average of the five most popular cars, and whether it should be five or eight years old.

Finance committee  The documents that were sent do include a list of the items that are in the basket. It's at the back of the attachment from the first review. There's a complete list of what's in the basket there.

Finance committee  It is. It's available on the ESDC website.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, I would note at the outset that the government has made a very strong commitment to Statistics Canada to ensure that it is an independent statistical agency. It will continue to provide Canadians with the objective statistics that are required to help inform decisions by parliamentarians, businesses, unions and individual Canadians.

Finance committee  That's the lowest we've seen, yes.

Finance committee  The Statistics Canada release indicated quite clearly that the Canada child benefit has played a very important role.

Finance committee  The CCB is income tested, and it provides additional resources to low-income families. That is the case.

Finance committee  The universal child care benefit was taxable, yes.

Finance committee  I'm afraid that I don't have those easily with me at the moment.

Finance committee  I thought that it was 2002, but I can confirm that for the committee.

Finance committee  What I will undertake to do is contact my colleagues at Statistics Canada to find the most complete publication they have available, which would include the methodology for the market basket measure. We will arrange to have that provided to the committee.

Finance committee  Exactly.

Finance committee  The market basket measure is a made-in-Canada measure focused on the Canadian context and circumstances.