I want to start with Professor Cockfield.
Professor, I've appreciated your appearance before this committee in the past. I think if you were to ask the Canadian government and Canadian financial institutions, they would obviously prefer that FATCA did not exist. They would obviously prefer as well that the U.S. taxed its citizens based on residence and not on citizenship. We would all prefer that. I wish that were so, but it is not so. We seem to be linking in a bunch of issues. The fact is whether FATCA exists or not, the U.S. is still going to tax based on citizenship, not residency, until the American government changes that policy—which I believe it should. But until they change that policy....
I think both you and your colleague, who was on the previous panel, are saying there's a false dichotomy between complying with FATCA and implementing the IGA. You say there is another option that the government has. I just perhaps want you to respond. We had a tax lawyer on the previous panel, Mr. Roy Berg, who said:
Had it not entered into the IGA, Canadian financial institutions would have faced the unenviable dilemma of either complying with Canadian law and risking FATCA's 30% withholding tax; or complying with FATCA and risk violating Canadian law.
Is that statement not correct?