Finance committee  I'm not familiar with that lawyer, their firm or their marketing materials, but you asked a couple of questions there. I think you asked, first, if our firm provides similar services. No, we do not, in the sense that we practise exclusively Canadian law and U.S. law in our New York office.

Finance committee  If it's tax avoidance, again, I think that's addressed in our domestic FAPI regime. Canada already taxes income through that regime, whether it's in a tax treaty country like Barbados or in a non-tax treaty country like the Cayman Islands. Again, I'm failing to see the connection between Bill C-82 and....

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Finance committee  Maybe I'll start with what it was modelled after, which was major league baseball. I think it's working extremely well there. When baseball players were up for free agency, there used to be a long and drawn-out process, and it was very difficult to get the players and the owners to agree.

Finance committee  I don't know why Barbados is our third country. I don't know whether that's true, but I'll defer to you on the accuracy of it. In the case of investments from Canada in Barbados, I suspect that in many cases it's a case of using Barbados as a holding company for investments in other jurisdictions.

Finance committee  In short, this should not impact the USMCA. I believe the Department of Finance officials mentioned it. From a U.S. perspective, the U.S. has detailed an objective and “easy to understand whether they apply or not” limitation on benefits rules in their treaties both with Mexico and Canada.

Finance committee  That's correct, because it will be less clear whether treaty benefits apply in any particular circumstances. In other words, there will be a risk that the tax authorities in either Canada or Mexico could seek to deny treaty benefits, and then you would have to go through the expensive and time-consuming process of going to court to prove them wrong.

Finance committee  I think the OECD has established a process to ensure that this doesn't happen, in the sense that, because there were certain minimum standards agreed to, the OECD also established a peer review process whereby they would review each country to determine whether it has complied with the minimum standards.

Finance committee  I'm sorry. With respect to this main treaty-shopping point, the optional ways are either a detailed limitation on benefits route, which is what the U.S. has done, or a principal purposes test-type rule, which is what Canada and Barbados have signed on to in the MLI.

Finance committee  I'll give you an overly simplified example, so we'll take it with that caveat. When you invest in an RRSP in Canada, you might ask what your purpose is of investing in an RRSP. Is it to save for your retirement, or is it to avoid tax by getting a deduction on your RRSP contribution?

Finance committee  I left out one important part. The CRA has said that they intend to apply the domestic GAAR and this principal purpose test simultaneously.

Finance committee  Domestically, we have safeguards in place in the sense that we have a GAAR committee that is designed to ensure our domestic GAAR is applied consistently across the country. The hope is that same GAAR committee would also consistently review all applications of the principal purposes test to have those domestic safeguards in place.

Finance committee  I have not, but I can say that, from the Canada-U.S. treaty perspective, they are not public. Neither Canada nor the U.S. publicizes the decisions. I believe, under U.S. law, once they've had a certain number of decisions, they're required under U.S. law to say what the statistics are.

Finance committee  I think that's why it should not be public.

Finance committee  Sorry, but I don't speak French. What's different in this treaty? You're right, we do have a general anti-avoidance rule that does apply to tax fees. You mentioned tax evasion. Tax evasion is criminal activity, which isn't impacted at all—