Mr. Speaker, I will probably not have enough time to reply to all the wonderful questions I have just heard. However, if the parliamentary secretary is serious and really thinks that Barbados, which has a rate of between 1% and 2 1/2% on profits, is not a tax haven, he is not in the right place. We are not talking about identical systems but about comparable systems.
In the case of Barbados, it is not a matter of double taxation but of tax avoidance. I was therefore careful to use the words—perhaps they were misinterpreted by the translators—“tax avoidance”. I did not speak of tax evasion. There is tax avoidance in the case of Barbados because it was the finance minister, now the Prime Minister, who changed the rules to ensure that it was not tax evasion.
There is a serious problem now. If the parliamentary secretary saw the show Enjeux , which was televised last spring, he saw journalists going to Barbados to see where the headquarters of CSL International were. They found that there were nine CSL companies under the same heading, whereas normally, Canadian law provides that there must be real business activities. There are apparently three people who work for these nine CSL companies, including CSL International. However, the receptionist was only able to name one person.
ATTAC-Québec has now filed a complaint against CSL International and the CSL Group to see whether there really were some business activities, in accordance with the tax treaty and with Barbados law and Canadian law. This is therefore something that should be followed.