Okay.
That's what led to our being here today, and I am pleased to be able to speak to the issues that arise.
We all know that a lot of revenue is lost to both provincial and federal governments. In my brief to the finance committee in 2013, I estimated that the losses annually were between $5.3 billion and $7.8 billion. Since then there have been other investigators who have come to similar conclusions. One I'd mention is Gabriel Zucman in his recent book called The Hidden Wealth of Nations, who also concludes that there must be about $300 billion, or 9% of total Canadian wealth, held offshore. That is much higher than for the United States. In the United States it is only about 4%, so Canada actually has a serious problem here.
Individuals and corporations would not be able to use tax havens to hide their wealth without the encouragement and assistance of facilitators. The facilitators include banks, financial institutions, wealth management firms, law firms, and accounting firms. We need additional legislative controls to regulate this industry, and the government must be much more aggressive in going after facilitators. That's the best way to do it, and would in fact be far more effective than using additional auditors. If you cut off the facilitators, you cut off more than half the business, and half the problem is solved.
I believe there are a number of very dedicated CRA staff. They have, with great difficulty, uncovered some serious cases of suspected tax evasion only to find, in many instances, that their cases were not followed through by CRA management, for whatever reason. We did a study called “What's Wrong at the CRA and How to Fix It.” I've given copies, both in French and English, to all members of the committee. It was based on interviews with quite a few CRA auditors. It's clear that some of them felt that there was political interference resulting in cases being dropped, even though they felt there was a strong case to be made. There really is a question about how the CRA management is pursuing some of these cases. Why would they go to a court to try to get names of clients when they could serve a search warrant and get the information that way?
We also continue to call for better protection for whistleblowers. Because of the media profile that I've achieved, I get a lot of people coming forward to me. There are a lot more whistleblowers and cases that have been revealed to me, and I am working with media and the authorities to try to help them pursue those cases.
The particular case that we're not supposed to refer to is only the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot more serious problems at stake, and the government has to do a lot more to get to the bottom of the problems of the CRA and to take on the serious challenge of dealing with tax evasion and tax fraud related to tax havens.
Scott will continue our presentation.