Finance committee  Yes, that's what we're doing.

Finance committee  There's a variety of options. They may order and take them from the store that day, take them home. They may want them shipped to their house in three days, two weeks, or three weeks. They may have them installed, depending—

Finance committee  On the fact that it ends at the end of January, some consumers are probably confused over whether they have to have it all installed by then, if it requires a contractor, or whether they can just have it purchased and then it can be installed later. That would probably be the most significant.

Finance committee  I know we can split up the product versus the labour, but I don't know if all retailers can. So it's not a matter of —

Finance committee  Sure, we can separate the product from the labour itself. You can get all the product and have it in your house even before January 31. If you want to do it yourself, you can, but if you want to have it installed, you can have that done later. It's just about the clarity around that.

Finance committee  Certainly in the retail industry we represent, one member of a number of bodies, we need to keep our labour pool commensurate with our sales performance. As that came off in the fourth quarter of last year, you had to make adjustments accordingly. Near the end of the second quarter of this year, as that stimulus and the confidence did start to return on behalf of consumers, we did see that rebound again.

Finance committee  Certainly. It was announced in February. I think we were first out of the gate in terms of getting our web page up with respect to the home renovation tax credit, and we saw 75,000 hits to that site in the first month. We introduced a top-up program beyond that in March. Then it swelled to almost 300,000, and we've seen another close to 300,000 engage from our standpoint.

Finance committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, my name is Michael Rowe, and I'm the vice-president and chief financial officer of Home Depot Canada. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee to share Home Depot Canada's perspective on the importance of timely passage of Bill C-51.