What happened, of course, was that other countries around the world were assessing their tax gaps. As you know, that's the difference between what your national revenue agency collects and what they should be collecting, and hence the gap.
The second thing the tax gap analysis does is indicate how effective and efficient your revenue agency is—in other words, how good a job they're doing. The United Kingdom, Turkey, Switzerland—a whole host of countries—the United States, even the State of California, measure their tax gaps. They all find it a useful tool. I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer some years ago to do it. I didn't want the CRA doing it, for a host of reasons that I'd be pleased to expand on if you're interested. I wanted an independent analysis done by the PBO. The Parliamentary Budget Officer could not get the co-operation of the revenue agency, notwithstanding the legal opinion that entitled them to the information on a confidential basis. They're not interested in individual taxpayers; they're interested in the overall numbers. That has not happened. We don't have an independent analysis.
Under much public pressure, the Canada Revenue Agency started to do one-off tax gap analyses. For example, they did one on corporate dues. They did one on excise customs. They've done six in total, and by the Canadian Revenue Agency analysis, the tax gap is between $20 billion and $24 billion. There are a whole bunch of other tax-gap analyses that have to be done, and the PBO should be doing them so that we have that overarching view.
The other thing to remember on the tax gap is that it's sort of like political polls: The numbers aren't as important as the trend line. How much of this money is the CRA collecting, and is the gap getting greater or is it being reduced?