It is a very tricky balance. In terms of what the profile is of these Canadian taxpayers engaged in international tax evasion, I think you'd see a lot of different types. You'd see the contractor who doesn't have withholding obligations imposed on him and he makes a million dollars, discloses $500,000, and puts the other half offshore.
There may also be, I've speculated in the past, a kind of unique taxpayer to Canada and certain other countries with lots of immigrants. Let's say a hypothetical taxpayer moved to Canada from Hong Kong and had $100 million in savings in 1990. They come to Canada, knowing that once they're a Canadian resident they're taxed on their worldwide income. That total $100 million earned outside of Canada will then be subject to Canadian tax, so before they move here they put it into an account offshore. That's another person who didn't initially generate illegal moneys to be put offshore. Then you've got the drug traffickers, etc. There's also a concern that tax havens are being used to finance international terrorism. We've got FINTRAC and other measures to address that.
As a concluding comment, I think fear is the main motivation for entering into these voluntary disclosures—not trying to repatriate the money. They can probably get it back here in some fashion, through offshore credit cards or some other device. They're worried that they're going to be prosecuted criminally, and therefore they're entering into these disclosures. It's kind of like a plea bargain the crown enters into with counsel for the accused. I mean, some Canadians probably aren't happy that we engage in this plea bargaining process in our justice system to move people more efficiently through the system and for other objectives—to encourage rehabilitation, etc.
That's how I look at the voluntary disclosure program. It's not going to make a lot of Canadians happy to see that folks get a break; nevertheless, we want to bring them into our paying system, to rehabilitate them, and to get their tax revenues to pay for roads, schools, etc.