Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.
Actually, that is a very good point about what happened in the past. I would have to say that it's easy today, in 2014, to say that this happened and that happened, but if you take a step back.... I was lucky enough to be one of Canada's representatives on the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, where we looked at what so-called tax havens did and at countries involved in bank secrecy.
It's no secret that Switzerland was one of those countries. I would say that in the mid-2000s, when I was a member of the Forum on Harmful Tax Practices, I never thought for a million years that I would see Switzerland sign an amended treaty with Canada for article 26, which is the exchange of information. Also, a year or two years ago, whatever the case may be, Canada signed a new treaty with Switzerland that includes the OECD standard for article 26, and we now exchange banking information with Switzerland.
Things have changed dramatically in the last few years, and I think they will continue to change dramatically. The ex-head of the OECD, Mr. Owens, said that for a lot of the stuff that the OECD and the treaty partners were doing, their ultimate goal was to ensure that nobody has room to hide money anywhere in the world. I think the OECD and its member countries have done a very good job in a relatively short period of time.