Mr. Speaker, the fact is that France got results and recently signed a double taxation avoidance agreement with Panama. That is because, this past February, France became proactive and levied a 50% tax on dividends, service fees, royalties and interest paid by French companies to a beneficiary in any of the blacklisted countries. Of course, one of the 18 countries was Panama.
Clearly the proof exists that if proactive action is taken, such as France took and imposed penalties against the 350,000 companies that are operating in Panama, there will be results. Panama came to the table very quickly, and the Prime Minister should now be diverting his plane when he leaves Switzerland after meeting with the Swiss president and heading straight to Panama to make sure we get a similar agreement.
As a matter of fact, Panama has signed an agreement with eight countries just in the last few months. Guess what? Not one of them is Canada. Panama has signed agreements with Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Qatar, and Spain, all in the last six months. Yet Canada is a country that is doing a free trade deal with Panama and it is not part of those eight.