Certainly.
The concern here is that there are obviously different ways that informants could obtain the information that may be useful to the Canada Revenue Agency to go after tax avoiders.
It could be in the context of a professional relationship. It could be a lawyer-client relationship. It could be a CGA relationship. It could be any number of professional advisers. It could also be employees that are part of that offshore organization or a Canadian organization that has an offshore office, for example. Because there are so many different ways this information can be obtained, it's not clear whether there are any limits to how that information is obtained. It's not clear whether the Canada Revenue Agency will have concerns with stolen information and stolen hard drives or whether it should have concerns.
This again is another policy decision that should be made if there are any limits that the CRA wants to put on the type of information that can be used, because it's one thing to say we want whatever kind of information would help us go after these tax avoiders and it's another thing to say there are still practical limits here. We don't want the informants to be viewed as agents of the CRA who are going out and stealing those hard drives if that's something that Parliament doesn't want to happen.