Thank you.
On behalf of all those I’ve spoken to in Quebec, I sincerely hope Quebec’s Civil Code and Consumer Protection Act will continue to apply to Quebec’s banking sector after the passing of the budget implementation bill.
Minister, your mandate letter points out that you are also the minister responsible for Statistics Canada. The finance minister’s mandate letter contains a number of priorities that deal with tax avoidance. Still today, however, we have little in the way of relevant statistics. Could you task Statistics Canada with gathering better information on the issue of tax avoidance?
I’ll give you an example. Until a decade or so ago, Canada’s banks still had to report how much they were saving in taxes on their profits by using offshore shell companies and such in tax havens such as the Bahamas and Barbados. That requirement disappeared after the last financial crisis.
Do you think Statistics Canada could research and document this type of practice so we have a better understanding of tax avoidance?