International Trade committee  When you say the treaty, are you talking about the free trade agreement or--

International Trade committee  Okay. Arguably, as you know, Canada is very active internationally with the global forum and the OECD. Frankly, those efforts have placed a lot of positive pressure on a number of so-called tax havens around the world, including Panama. There has been significant movement in the

International Trade committee  Finance has the lead, and they would have conducted all those negotiations and they would have been aware of any positions we have had. But we wouldn't be formally involved in the front end of any of those negotiations. Finance is well aware of the position of the administration

Finance committee  That's a separate tax avoidance--

Finance committee  It is one of the schemes that is used to abuse charitable organizations, and there are others, and those are all being attacked by our compliance program branch, by audits. There's a partnership between, as you can imagine, Chair...tackling the actual scheme and the individuals

Finance committee  I'll have to get back to you on that. I know it was in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions. We'll get you a number, because I know we do have one, in terms of what we have assessed.

Finance committee  That's, frankly, the only G and C program that exists at the agency. It has been in place for, I guess, five or six years.

Finance committee  Sorry, Mr. Chair. It's grants and contributions. It's the only grants and contributions program that exists at the agency. When, about seven or eight years ago, the government decided to significantly reform the administration of charities, one of the things that was decided at

Finance committee  No, actually, it has to be sponsored by and partnered with a charitable organization. I think almost all of them have had, as you can well imagine, people who work in that sector who are very committed to the sector, and we certainly think--

Finance committee  Specifically, though, obviously there's always a good dialogue between us and the ombudsman, and if he, as part of his report or analysis, identifies something wherein it would be a benefit to us to share more or better information with taxpayers on the front end, that's the kind

Finance committee  If there are any estimates of the actual program impacts of the change of a tax credit or the withdrawal of any, they would be provided by Finance. We can certainly undertake to share the question with Finance. In terms of administration, normally in those kinds of items, as me

Finance committee  I think it's included in my budget, which is....

Finance committee  So the number would be in there.

Finance committee  The ombudsman does operate quite independently, certainly autonomously of the agency, but he does have a separate website. Didn't he just issue his report? Is that public yet, do you know? At any rate, we will get back to the committee about the website, his reports, and othe

Finance committee  They're set at a market rate in discussion with Treasury Board and practitioners to be reasonable, and I think we're currently.... I think it's about $125 an hour, but we can confirm what the rate is. But as you know, we're not allowed to charge fees that make a profit. We're all