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Finance committee Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before this committee to give my thoughts on the role of offshore financial centres and the role they play in the Canadian economy. This is a very important issue for the global competitiveness and prosperity of Canada, and theref
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee That's a very important question, and I think it really comes down to the whole issue of transparency and disclosure of information. You think about the impact of deploying these global strategies on real economic activity; the work that I've done has looked at the impact on Cana
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee We are looking at this from different perspectives. The whole idea of Starbucks is that it's exciting, and all of a sudden it talks about tax fairness and so on. What I think about, in the research that I talk about, is this. This can be applied to any OECD country, but when a
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee To respect the time of the committee, I'll pass.
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Absolutely.
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Yes. I think you could come up with better measures than just a simple guess.
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Absolutely. I'm quite concerned that in reaction to stories like the one about Starbucks and so on, a policy that is too aggressive to address these issues misses the wider benefit that offshore financial centres can play for a country like Canada as we continue to expand globall
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee I think absolutely it could hurt us.
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Yes. There's a study by the Department of Foreign Affairs that looks at Canada's reach into the BRIC economies, into these emerging markets, and it shows that we are lagging behind other OECD countries in terms of our penetration of these other markets. We're too tied economicall
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee I don't want to go outside my area of research, but specifically any revenue generated in Canada should be subject to Canadian taxation. And anyone who uses any of these methods to avoid taxes legally due in Canada is committing tax evasion and should be prosecuted for that. Off
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Without saying too much, because you're going into an area in which I haven't done formal research when I talk about transfer pricing, I would tend to agree with you.
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi
Finance committee Just very quickly, if I may give a parallel example, I look around the room and I see lots of Apple products. If you look on the back to see where it is made, you will see “assembled in China” but “designed in California”. The reason that's an important issue is the following. Ev
February 26th, 2013Committee meeting
Dr. Walid Hejazi