Madam Speaker, I want to ask the member a question because, unknown to the House, he is an expert on laws around the world concerning money laundering and has a great deal of background in this area.
In the member's opinion, why did the government leave out the whole question of tax evasion? I see the member from Saskatchewan across the way. The minister is in the cabinet and I would ask him this question but I cannot because this is not question period. Tax evasion is not addressed in this bill.
The Internal Revenue Service in the United States estimated that the tax collector loses about $9 billion a year in the U.S. because of tax evasion. Nine billion dollars a year is a lot of cash. If one were to extrapolate that into Canadian dollars, where we have one-tenth the population, it would mean, if we were similar to the United States in terms of our loss of money through tax evasion, that we would lose about $1 billion a year. That is a lot of cash. It could pay for a lot of health care and a lot of educational systems that we all need. It could also address some of the farm crisis. It could address all kinds of major problems that we have in the country.
In his very studied and learned opinion, why does the member for Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre think this is not part of the bill. Is it too complicated or just not a high enough priority? Why would this not be part of the bill?
I also appreciated his comments on the Tobin tax. If we can follow the flow of money in terms of criminal activity—and I remind the House again that the third largest industry in the world is criminal activity in terms of the flow of illegal money, dirty money—by setting up rules and regulations in the OECD and the G-8, then it puzzles me as to why we cannot do the same thing on currency speculation in terms of what is called the Tobin tax. I maintain that if there is a will, there is a way as well.
Anyway, I will go back to the tax evasion issue and ask why it is not included in the bill.