Madam Speaker, if the hon. member was present today and heard the minister speak to this issue, the minister clearly stated that this particular tax convention is under review and that the department continues to review tax treaties around the world on an annual basis. This is not something that goes unnoticed. As imperfections within the rules are found, there is the opportunity for the department to examine and then bring forward to the House changes that ought to be made within our tax rules.
Although today there have been suggestions that tax treaties are a means of evasion, I would suggest that they actually form the basis of a rules process where we are allowed to work within the international community.
We have seen lately with some of the other issues with our trading partners that it is so important to have rules based trading that actually makes sense and which we can rely upon. In this process I think that working with tax treaties establishes rules for inter-country exchanges, as we said for example, people who might attempt to evade taxes. A tax treaty encourages the other country to work with our country to seek out and get the information that we need in order to properly prosecute those who would evade taxes and defeat our Canadian tax system.
From a treaty point of view, I believe that they are very beneficial. I think they are positive, but yes, we must always be vigilant in order to make sure that those rules are effective.