It's certainly true that especially where international tax evasion—and I say that deliberately to distinguish it from avoidance—is involved, international cooperation is vital. The OECD has actually been playing a role for some ten years in helping to coordinate the efforts of its member countries and other countries in this area.
One of the important things that the OECD has done, working actually in conjunction with some of the offshore jurisdictions, is develop a model tax information exchange agreement, or TIEA, and that model forms the basis of the agreements that Canada is now committed to seeking with jurisdictions. So at that level, yes, multilateral effort is very important.
At the end of the day, though, it does come down, in the current context at least, to a matter of the bilateral relationships that Canada can establish with these jurisdictions and obtaining information exchange. That's why an important part of the budget initiative is oriented around securing information exchange agreements with jurisdictions that are not candidates for full-scale tax treaties, but with whom it's important, nonetheless, for the Canada Revenue Agency to have the kind of relationship that will enable them to enforce Canadian tax law in respect of our own taxpayers.
