Finance committee  The impact on transfers is going to be a matter of course, of the way the formula works. There are provincial taxation changes all the time. If you look at changes in personal income taxes, those automatically would be reflected in different fiscal capacities.

Finance committee  The choice of harmonization is a choice the provincial government made. I assume that the provincial government, if it were concerned about transfer impacts, would have done that type of analysis, but I certainly wasn't asked to do that.

Finance committee  As I said before, the policy is that we take the remitted profits in their entirety from a crown corporation. Any crown corporation that is engaged in the generation of hydroelectricity is treated in the natural resources base. Any crown corporation that is not engaged in anythin

Finance committee  From my understanding, there was a cross-reference that was not made entirely correctly, and we decided in this bill to change that cross-reference.

Finance committee  I'm afraid for that part of the bill itself I don't have the exact references as to what it was in the past. I can give you the answer, but--

Finance committee  The amount for Ontario is being calculated as if this reference has been corrected, so it's not affecting the actual payment itself to Ontario. It is for 2010-2011, by the way. I just checked my notes.

Finance committee  On your first question, last year in the Budget Implementation Act a change was made to the Canada health transfer that provided a separate payment to Ontario, so that it would be treated under the Canada health transfer like any other receiving province. That legislation spelled

Finance committee  The Government of Ontario hasn't said anything one way or the other, to my knowledge.

Finance committee  Ontario certainly hasn't expressed any concerns about what we're doing. They're certainly aware of what we're doing, and they have not expressed any concerns at all.

Finance committee  Let me return to the second part of your question, the harmonized sales tax in Ontario. We measure fiscal capacity based upon the average tax and taxation practices of provinces. The fact that Ontario is moving from a retail sales tax to the harmonized sales tax will certainly

Finance committee  Only to the extent that the 13% rate in Ontario comprises the 8% rate that's provincial and the 5% federal rate. Certainly the 5% federal rate does not factor into fiscal capacity.

Finance committee  I think I addressed this in a previous response. In response to Quebec's concerns, the Minister of Finance announced there would be multilateral discussions on the issues that were raised by Quebec as part of a larger discussion about the treatment of hydroelectricity within equa

Finance committee  I can confirm that the Minister of Finance from Quebec recently sent a letter to the Minister of Finance for the federal government outlining exactly the same concerns that were expressed in Quebec's budget. That correspondence is being looked at as we speak.

Finance committee  I'm not an expert on the stabilization case, so I think I'm going to refrain from responding to that question other than to say that Quebec has once again raised its concerns with the federal Minister of Finance.

Finance committee  Not to my knowledge.