Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the panel members.
Prior to entering politics, I worked in many parts of the world. I have also looked at corporations both in the public sector as well the public corporations versus private corporations that have fared very well internationally. Returning back to Canada, it appears to me that we are in a very over-regulated regime, over-regulated to the point that we almost have to hire full-time accountants and lawyers for tax compliance and for regulatory compliances. I just want to drill down a bit on the simplification of our system and where we could be internationally competitive for attracting international investment dollars.
If I could sort of conjecture, some of these may have to do with standardizing reporting. Rather than having our reporting so complex that our financial accounting and our tax accounting have to be reconciled, is there some way that could be done? This has to do with our philosophy of taxation.
In one country I worked in, they had uniform invoices. There's no way that you can create an invoice of whatever, you always have a uniform invoice so that the tax department knows exactly what is the expense and what is the revenue at all times.
For certain businesses, I think, depending on the business sector, we would achieve a better efficiency by going back to the cash basis of accounting rather than the accrual basis of accounting.
I certainly share with you that we've come a long way since the 1966 Carter commission and then the 1972 Tax Act. It was implemented when I started my public accounting career. As we we move 40 years from now and look back, I think we need to rethink some of that, as you suggested.
I'd like to hear your comments on that, starting with Mr. Dancey first, on the four issues that I've touched upon.