Well, it’s not a decision, but a convention. We were told to be careful, and that it was going to limit the scope of the questions we could ask. It also limited the witnesses we could hear from. One witness decided not to appear because of this convention.
With constraints like this, I seriously wonder how we can really say that we are getting to the bottom of the KPMG issue and the actions of the Canada Revenue Agency, given the few answers that we have gotten so far from agency officials about how this works. We have also gotten few responses from witnesses who have held back a little regarding KPMG. The sub judice rule has influenced the direction that this committee could take. This surely isn’t the last time we will talk about tax evasion or aggressive tax avoidance at this committee.
If we don't talk about the repercussions of this convention or how we are going to consider it, chances are, this committee will have no way of doing any moderately effective work on tax havens or aggressive tax avoidance.
As a committee, we have very wide powers. Our powers are even greater than professional privilege or solicitor-client privilege. We can use them if we want to. I’m not saying we have to, but it shows the reach of a committee’s powers. Limiting ourselves to accepting the convention from the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel will seriously affect our ability to do our work.
That's why I think this should count for three quarters of the report, but it's important to mention the situation the committee is in after receiving this warning from the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. Analysts do not make recommendations. That’s our job, but I need some information about what this means for our work. We discussed it at our last meeting, when we heard from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. We acknowledged that the committee did not fully understand the entire scope of the sub judice issue.
It would be a good idea for the analysts to tell us what this means for our work, particularly as part of the study on tax havens, tax legislation and tax avoidance.