What you are saying is very interesting, but in reality, from the moment we opened the markets to multinationals and allowed them to shop for tax systems, we put these systems into tax competition with each other. Here, we are talking about the agreement with Panama, but we could also very well be talking about free trade agreements with all the tax havens, and the discussion would be the same. All these discussions would have one thing in common: the competitiveness of our Canadian businesses. I am the first to say the same as you did, and I said it in my presentation earlier: reducing taxes for business is a major problem that must be discussed outside the Canada-Panama agreement. I mean no disrespect, but it needs to be discussed at an international table, and not this one here.
On December 6th, 2010. See this statement in context.