Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me and for giving me an opportunity to talk about this agreement, which, I must say, raises some doubts.
First, I would like to tell you a bit about ATTAC-Québec. We are the Quebec branch of an organization with local groups in some 20 countries on four continents. ATTAC is especially focused on taxation issues and is in favour of taxing financial transactions. Doing so could bring in between $400 billion and $1 trillion a year, while reducing the amount of short-term speculative activity, which is very damaging for our economy.
ATTAC is also interested in tax havens, whose only purpose is to enable people to evade and avoid taxes and to launder the proceeds of organized crime. Therefore, tax havens encourage the globalization of crime and help people circumvent the rule of law. Yet, Canada is preparing to conclude a free-trade agreement with one of the worst tax havens out there. Panama is among the most active, least cooperative tax havens, and it finds itself on the OECD's grey list. For that reason, we cannot condone concluding such an agreement, because it would more or less legitimize an important tax haven, whose major economic activity, as pointed out by Todd Tucker with whom we share analyses and who was summoned by this committee, consists in providing financial and legal services to multinationals and drug dealers.
Of course, a free-trade agreement could be of interest to many businessmen, but they do not make up most of Canada's population, and we at ATTAC-Québec do not feel that this agreement would benefit the populations of Canada and Panama. We believe that the tax losses Canada will suffer as a result of companies setting up branches in Panama will exceed the benefits some companies might reap. In a period of financial restraint like the one we are currently going through, one of the worst things the country can do is to encourage tax evasion because we need all our money more than ever to maintain the quality of public services.
We feel that this agreement could have an adverse effect on Panamanians. A tariff reduction can have the following consequences: first, making local products less competitive; second, depriving a state of much-needed income. We know that there are fairly serious poverty issues in Panama. Therefore, depriving the government of income could adversely affect a poor population.
The opening up of government procurement would deny the state one of its few tools for supporting the local economy by giving priority to national companies. Keep in mind that the poorest countries refused to sign the WTO Government Procurement Agreement, precisely because they thought they would be losing an important power. This agreement was ratified without proper consultation with the civil society. Of course, employers were consulted, but the Canadian population wasn't, and no proper public debate was held on the issue. However, we are talking about a first for our country. Canada signing an agreement with a tax haven is something of an anomaly, and it should have been the focus of a major public debate.
For all these reasons, ATTAC-Québec feels that the bill to implement the agreement between Canada and Panama should not be adopted.
Thank you very much.