Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen.
I find myself in agreement with Ms. Glover. We don't always agree, but....
Mr. Cockfield, when you talk about a voluntary compliance program...my understanding is that CRA has a voluntary compliance program for Canadians here who may not have filed a tax report four or five years ago, for instance, and nine times out of ten they just pay the interest, unless you have somebody represent you.
I guess there are two questions, and this kind of goes to both of you, I think.
It seems to me that folks who are actually bringing their money back, who are actually voluntarily complying...it must be because they want to actually repatriate the money they've actually put over there, because otherwise, if you want to leave it over there, what do you care? If you're bringing it back, you're bringing it back for a reason. Maybe it's an inheritance issue. You might be elderly. Maybe it's going to a family. Maybe you're trying to move it into a different business that might be legitimate. So we're allowing that to happen as a voluntary compliance piece and we're saying to them that it's okay to bring it back: we want you to bring it back; you can cut a deal with us and we'll reduce the penalties outstanding for you—never mind the moral piece about how we're actually rewarding you for doing something that was illegal.
It seems to me in the criminal justice system it's the only time we actually reward folks for doing something illegal in the first place. If I break into a Mac's Milk store and nobody catches me but one day I say I did it, the authorities don't say to me, well, let's cut a deal because you voluntarily told us that you've broken into the Mac's Milk store when you were 14. It doesn't work that way.
The other side is--Mr. Rosen, I will let Mr. Cockfield start, and then if you could help me with this....
Maybe I heard it wrong, but it seems to me that you are suggesting that this money being voluntarily repatriated—and looking, through advisors or whomever, for some sort of a deal, if you will, that's less punitive than what's established at the moment—seems to have started out as perhaps even illegal in some cases. I think you actually said it's now the majority of cases.
If that is true, we're now saying bring back the money that went offshore illegally—that was actually generated by illegal activity—and somehow we give someone a break for that. I hate to tell you, but I would have a tough time going back to workers at John Deere, whose plant disappeared, and saying to them that it's okay for folks to get that kind of deal when we couldn't save their jobs.
I wonder if both of you could talk about that issue. How do we make that salient with Canadians?