Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a brief comment on what was just said.
Canada is still behind Colombia, and the amounts targeted or recovered have nothing to do with what is being done in Germany or the United Kingdom. According to the Radio‑Canada article, even Revenu Québec has managed to recover more money and identify more files than the Canada Revenue Agency. In my opinion, there is a problem. To say that everything is fine is to keep playing the song Don't Worry Be Happy.
First, the purpose of today's meeting was to ask the Minister of National Revenue about tax evasion and to get her explanation as to why the Agency signed a lenient amnesty agreement with KPMG and its clients. The purpose of the meeting was to ask her what she is doing, as minister, to address the fraud and embezzlement in the case involving Mr. Weinberg and executives of Norshield and Mount Real, where a Ponzi scheme defrauded thousands of small investors of their savings.
Five hundred million are missing, and most are still unaccounted for. The purpose of the meeting was to ask her how she was going to ensure that the small savers who were robbed could get their money back. The minister has the power.
Will she use her ministerial power to call a public inquiry as she alone has the authority to do under subsection 231.4(1) of the Income Tax Act?
The purpose of the meeting was to ask her what she is doing about the sword companies, which is what I wanted to ask her.
However, the minister chose to go AWOL. She chose to bury her head in the sand. She was invited last week and now she is running away. This is deplorable and I can assure you that we in the committee will continue to hold her accountable. We will not stop there. Hiding like this may help save her skin once, but not twice.
Mr. Chair, let me tell you that I'm sure we'll come back and find a way to hear from the minister on this. As I told you during the point of order, she was at her desk all through question period. Blowing off such an important study is honestly unacceptable.
We are talking about tax justice and fairness for individuals and taxpayers. Justice must be done for small savers like Ms. Watson, who came to the committee for this study. Honestly, I find the minister's attitude unacceptable.
Having said that, I welcome the presence of the senior officials. My thanks to them for being here to answer our questions, and I appreciate that. Of course, my questions were primarily for the minister to address the points I raised.
My first question is for Mr. Gallivan.
Mr. Gallivan, thank you for your presentation.
On the issue of KPMG and the clients who used their scheme with the shell companies in the Isle of Man, can you confirm that there were 16 clients, 14 of whom agreed to identify themselves and two of whom refused?
Is that correct, Mr. Gallivan?