Finance committee  We're supportive of the intergovernmental agreement approach as an alternative to FATCA writ large—the negotiated approach, if you want to call it that, the U.S. regulatory approach—because it creates all kinds of challenges. Under FATCA, absent the intergovernmental agreement,

Finance committee  I know that the government has undertaken a review of consolidated tax reporting in Canada. Can we move to a system of reporting within Canada for a consolidated tax across a group-wide basis? We think reporting within Canada across a group-wide basis is a good thing. It's admini

Finance committee  I'd have to hear exactly how he framed his recommendation. I'm talking about consolidated reporting within Canada.

Finance committee  That's a different issue.

Finance committee  I'm sorry, you're going to have to rephrase the question because I'm not following.

Finance committee  I think what you're alluding to would be for Canada, in effect, to try to do its own variant of FATCA, and for a number of reasons that have been articulated, that simply hasn't worked.

Finance committee  Absolutely. From our perspective, Canadian banks operate on an international platform, to the extent that you can have international harmonization as opposed to bilateral arrangement. That's a good thing.

Finance committee  I think what you're talking about is something that was raised earlier, which is: should we move to a system of automatic information exchange? I think what we said is, from our point of view, that would be a good thing.

Finance committee  Sure. Thanks for your question. I'm glad you raised it. We've been saying since day one on the FATCA issue that ultimately what this is, is an issue of state. It has to be addressed from a state-to-state level through information exchanged between states. You can't try to enfor

Finance committee  I've read an analysis of it. I've talked to people who have read an analysis of it. I've done my own analysis of the information as it's been presented to me.

Finance committee  I've said, I've read parts of it. I've read the parts that—

Finance committee  I have an MBA.

Finance committee  I have an MBA in finance and a master's degree is economic development.

Finance committee  Fourteen. I wrote it.

Finance committee  Point number one on it is that Canada and the U.S. have a very substantial information exchange agreement and tax treaty already in place, and we think that should be the conduit through which information should flow. Everything else that followed after that was in the instance t