I thank my colleague for his important question.
According to my information, the Canada Revenue Agency has identified more than 3,000 foreign entities associated with more than 2,600 owner beneficiaries who have connections with Canada, and it has already audited 80% of them. We have chosen to tighten the rules of the voluntary disclosures program, the VDP, to prohibit access to taxpayers who are named in the Panama Papers or in information leaks.
Under my leadership, we have struck a committee to determine how to tighten the agency's rules in tax evasion cases as well as the rules of the VDP. In the first year of my mandate, we began to review four countries a year under country-to-country agreements. When the agency intervenes with respect to a country, people who have assets in that country no longer have access to the VDP.
So we're doing everything necessary to ensure all taxpayers pay their fair share. I've said this, and I'll repeat it: we've given the agency tools to tighten the vice. I invite people to disclose their information voluntarily before the agency begins looking into what's going on in a particular country as part of the country-to-country exchange of information.