Finance committee  We, in some cases, found auditors who had recently retired, and so were freer to talk. We had auditors refer others to them. We also had the co-operation of PIPSC, the Professional Institute of the Public Service, which represents auditors in the CRA. Some of their members were i

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  No, there was no peer review process. It's not an academic study. It was shared with government. The new minister has a copy of it. We did make these recommendations and the findings available to the government because we felt this warranted further investigation. We weren't clai

Finance committee  No, it's not an academic study.

Finance committee  As I said before, I deliberately made sure that I did not know the particulars of the cases that were mentioned by CRA auditors. I did not interview them myself. We hired a journalist to do the interviews and to keep the names of the CRA auditors from us, so I don't even know the

Finance committee  Our “What is Wrong at the CRA?” study was conducted during the spring and summer of 2015. It was based on interviews with 20-some CRA auditors. They were referring to cases that in some cases went back several years, so it would have covered a period of time. We very carefully

Finance committee  We've talked to quite a few auditors who, in some cases, were not sure how high up the orders came, but they suspected that some of the cases they were investigating were involving well-connected companies or individuals. They felt there was a very strong case, and for some reaso

Finance committee  I'll start, and then my colleague, Scott Chamberlain, will complete our presentation. I'm very pleased that this committee is holding hearings on this matter, as I was involved. I was the recipient of an anonymous phone call in March of 2015 regarding a court case involving an a

Finance committee  Okay. That's what led to our being here today, and I am pleased to be able to speak to the issues that arise. We all know that a lot of revenue is lost to both provincial and federal governments. In my brief to the finance committee in 2013, I estimated that the losses annually

Finance committee  There are a couple of things. One, there is increasing criticism of the stock option deduction from business as well. We find, for example, the former head of the U of T business school saying that this encouraged poor behaviour by corporations. It encourages a short-term type of

Finance committee  Yes, we are pleased that more people are coming forward. I think it's a result of not only some of the measures government has taken but the media attention to this issue and our efforts to make this a public issue. That has had a positive effect. I would agree with you on that o

Finance committee  Well, a 2011 finance department report on the impact of the government's action plan in response to the global recession concluded that investments in infrastructure had a 1.6 multiplier effect but that tax cuts were the least effective. In fact, they had a 0 or even negative mul

Finance committee  The Statistics Canada figures are probably a low estimate because they only cover the legal investments in tax havens. They don't capture the large amount of illegal investments, mainly made by wealthy private individuals. It's true that this figure is largely for the corporate i

Finance committee  This is where we are supporting an action plan to tackle tax havens that includes greater transparency about what exactly those investments are. One of the big problems is that the investments don't stay in those countries, they go on to other places; but they go through those co

Finance committee  Thank you for the opportunity to provide input on the next federal budget. Our message is that the federal government needs to increase its revenue in order to have the resources required to reduce income inequality and poverty, boost investments in social and physical infrastru