Finance committee  I'm not aware of all the details of it, but I know there are a number of loopholes like that. You know, it's true that there are always people looking for loopholes. The government has to keep vigilant to close those loopholes. Really, if the ultimate result of those loopholes

Finance committee  There are a number of other loopholes that we have identified as part of our “close tax loopholes” campaign. I didn't have time to address all of them.

Finance committee  Thank you for this opportunity to present again. You can imagine my surprise last year, when I was in the budget lock-up and got the budget document, to see a whole section devoted to tax fairness and action on tax havens. We were very pleased that there were some initial steps

Finance committee  —but I put that together with what I was hearing from Canadian journalists as well. The bottom line is that I do recognize that there seems to be some forward movement in Canada's position. I am pleased to see that, and I'm hoping that tomorrow we will learn if that is the case

Finance committee  In this case, that was done.

Finance committee  I have multiple sources that corroborate the information I was getting initially from one. I did not make any accusation without a pretty thorough cross-referencing—

Finance committee  That's a second.... I don't know who their sources are in the British government—

Finance committee  The journalist analogy is a good one. Normally, any responsible journalist will not base a statement or a story only on one source. They check their sources. I know, from having submitted to journalists for publication, that they don't accept publication of an opinion article wit

Finance committee  Okay.

Finance committee  I did earlier acknowledge that I heard that there seems to be some movement forward from Canadians' position—

Finance committee  —when I talked to not only British NGO sources and U.S. NGO sources, including Global Witness, which is one of the British NGOs, but I also confirmed that by talking to certain Canadian finance department officials in the G-8 team, which—

Finance committee  Well, from hearing the Prime Minister speak. I did look at that video last night—

Finance committee  No, the transcript that you just read I viewed online. I am encouraged by that. I think that does indicate some movement forward. That was not, though, the position I was hearing a week ago—

Finance committee  Well, the information I was able to gain from talking not only to British NGO staff, who were in direct touch with the British treasury—

Finance committee  No, not in my examination, but my point is that unless you have better rules globally on beneficial ownership, then none of this will be of any use at all, because if you can't establish clearly where the ultimate owner of a shell company or a trust account or any other instrumen