Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My question is for Mr. Vanneste, the chair of the Canadian Bankers Association's Financial Affairs Committee.
In your brief, you ask for reductions in the income tax rate from 21 to 19 per cent and the elimination of the corporate surtax. You also ask for the introduction of further cuts to the federal corporate income tax. Then, you recommend that the federal government show leadership by encouraging the provinces to eliminate all provincial capital taxes, and so on.
If all these things were done, do you believe that Canadian banks would resort less to using tax havens? That is because we find out that the Canadian taxman failed to collect between $2 and $3 billion in taxes because of the systemic use by Canadian banks, and of the Bank of Nova Scotia in particular, I must say, of tax havens located in Barbados, Bermuda and other locations.
Do you think lowering tax rates would guarantee that banks would assume their responsibilities as corporate citizens and pay their taxes in Canada?