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Print and Electronic Documents

The printed budget document is the official version as produced by the Department of Finance Canada. The Department assumes no responsibility for any discrepancies that may have been transmitted in the electronic version.

Accessibility

In order to make this site more accessible, the Department of Finance Canada has employed templates that meet the following conditions:

• are XHTML 1.0 Strict-conformant, to improve compatibility with adaptive technologies, hand-held devices, browsers, and search engines;
• have been successfully tested on a wide range of adaptive technologies and browser–platform combinations to ensure that Canadians can access Web pages regardless of the technology used;  
• include major components such as a common menu bar, side menu, and content area that are properly marked-up with headings to simplify navigation with a screen reader;
• employ a layout and design that has no tables in order to simplify screen reader navigation by reducing the structural complexity of Web pages;
• improve accessibility by allowing visitors to configure visual elements to meet their accessibility needs;
• use scalable fonts and text-based navigational elements to improve accessibility and simplify navigation using adaptive technologies;
• provide printer-friendly functionality in Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to render pages more compatible with printers and to prevent printing unnecessary page elements; and
• separate visual presentation from the document structure.

Alternative Document Formats and Plug-ins

All budget documents are available in HTML as the primary format. They are also available for download on the Department of Finance Canada website as a single self extracting archive (budget08.exe). Further instructions are available on the “Using the Finance Canada FTP site” page.

In some cases, alternative formats are available.

Word Processing Software

• Portable Document Format (PDF)—Documents may also be available in PDF. To view these files, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If the Adobe download site is not accessible to you, you can download Acrobat Reader from an accessible page. You can also visit the Adobe site for online conversion tools for PDF documents.

Media Players (for viewing multimedia content)

To enjoy the Budget 2008 multimedia features, you will need to download and install the appropriate players.

• Flash Player:  Use Adobe Flash Player to view the full budget story with the help of animation, charts, short video clips of Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty taking viewers through the budget’s key features and a slide show presentation with explanatory voice-over.
• Windows Media Player: Use Windows Media Player to view a livecast of the Minister delivering the budget speech in the House of Commons.

Technical Difficulties

If you encounter technical difficulties on this site or have difficulty accessing any of the content available here, please contact the webmaster at webmaster.webmestre@fin.gc.ca.