From the privacy perspective, the retention issue relates to, again, the ultimate purpose of the arrangement, which is to avoid tax evasion. The two governments share information for that purpose and should only retain that information for a period that is necessary for the other government to actually take tax enforcement action.
Normally in Canada the information is retained for seven years. Originally, the information shared between Canada and the U.S. was retained for 11 years. We asked the CRA to justify that period. They have agreed, in their response to our comments of December, to reduce the period from 11 to seven years. We think seven years is a reasonable period.