If you will, I would like to follow up on that. There were some rather startling statements in the opening remarks of the Canada Revenue Agency.
I will begin on page 5. It states that "since 2006, the CRA has audited more than 6,700 cases, identifying approximately $3.5 billion in unpaid tax..."
If my arithmetic is right, if you divide $3.5 billion by 6,700 cases, that gives you an average of approximately $525,000 per case.
Then Mr. Montroy said that your Voluntary Disclosures Program was quite effective, that it was a huge success. The 3,000 disclosures helped you recover $138 million. That amounts to $46,000 per case, or 11.5 times less than the previous amount.
Taxpayers are not asked to file voluntary tax returns; they are required to do so. And yet here, you pat yourselves on the back, boasting that you recovered an incredible $46,000 on average per voluntary disclosure. However, in the same text, you state that when cases are prosecuted and analyzed, when you go full out, you can recover $525,000, or 11.5 times more.
Jean Drapeau already tried to impose a voluntary tax to pay for the Olympic Games, or Expo 67, I forget which it was.
When dealing with tax matters, I do not think we should be using voluntary measures; we should be prosecuting people more.
I would like to hear your comments on that.