All right, I am going to summarize. In any case, you have read the brief.
Our analysis dealt with key components that define the purpose of a TIEA—namely, the burden of proof, the types of taxes that can be subject to a request, the legal criteria that apply to a request, the required documentation, control of information and the obligation of states to cooperate.
Following a review of these conditions under the OECD standard, we compared our results with conditions laid out in the Canada-Switzerland Protocol.
It is important to mention that the documentation requirement in the Canada-Switzerland Protocol for an information exchange request is stricter than the OECD standard. Both the taxpayer and holder of the information must be identified, which is not often the case for other protocols, such as the one signed by the United States and Switzerland or the protocol between Germany and Switzerland.
However, there have been some minor changes recently which were published on the site of the Swiss Parliament, following pressure from the OECD Transparency Committee, which strongly recommended, along with the G-20, that the protocol as adopted on October 23, be made less stringent with respect to the conditions for obtaining information. That information is not provided in the paper I have presented. The Swiss document only appeared on the Internet on February 15, and our paper had already been completed by then. However, I can provide further information in that regard during the question period.
In other words, in my opinion, the Canada-Switzerland Protocol, as signed—it has been signed but not yet ratified—by the Government of Canada and Switzerland, is somewhat lacking. The best way to explain that might be with an image: compared to the U.S., Canada is a dwarf as far as its rights go, while the United States is a giant, given what it was able to negotiate with Switzerland and the coercive power it has secured over Swiss officials in the agreement they signed.
Finally, you can have a look at the material that appears in Appendix A. It's fairly dense, but it lists the countries with which Canada currently has a tax treaty, and on the left the decade and year they came into effect are indicated. As you will see, most of them go back a long way and need to be reviewed.
On the right, in the second line, you have a summary of agreements and TIEAs. There is a whole series of TIEAs mentioned. At the bottom of the page, 15 or so are listed that have been signed in the 2010 decade. Of those countries with which Canada signed an agreement in 2010, none is a tax haven, of course: Anguilla, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Dominica, the Cayman Islands, and so on. I hope you understood that was a joke.
I will move directly to the recommendations that flow from our analysis. They are on page 7 of the brief.
We would like to see a regular review mechanism to examine the effectiveness of the information exchange provisions in the various protocols, as well as the many, hastily signed TIEAs that the government wants Parliament to ratify.
Among the TIEAs that appear in the appendix, only one is currently in force. It's the first one on the list. It's the agreement with the Netherlands and the Netherland Antilles, or at least what remains of them since they were broken up.
Are you stopping me here, Mr. Chairman? That's fine.