I'd like to pursue the future strategies, because I think it's really important that we come out of this meeting with a little bit of dialogue.
Penalties for evasion of income tax in the form of fines range from between 50% and 200% interest. That's pretty awesome. I spent a lot of years as a chartered accountant doing tax returns. I must admit, I have had involvement in some cases where people have said, “I ran into some difficulty. I couldn't pay my taxes. By the time I recovered, I had so much accumulated that I couldn't possibly afford to pay it back. So I had no way out, and I was just playing roulette trying to figure out whether I could continue to go on without getting that phone call. Once you get the phone call, the next thing you do is probably to go and get a rope and hang yourself.” There really are some very clear stories about how it happens. I know that Finance and CRA know very well how people get into trouble.
A voluntary disclosure program is an amnesty of sorts, isn't it? You can come out and you can negotiate a deal, and you don't have to pay 200% interest. You can say, “Let's do the best I can; I want to pay as much as I can, but I also have to survive and live.” It effectively is an amnesty program.
But let's not call it an amnesty. We have a program already that allows people who, in good faith, want to come out and make it right as well as they possibly can over the long term. I'd rather have 80% of something than 100% of nothing. That has to be part of our strategy, I hope.
So if we are now embarking on new initiatives for international treaties and information sharing, and really digging our heels in on those who are using offshore instruments, isn't it time we told Canadians how we feel about this and started to have a public education program that comes out with it, rather than just having the big stick?