Mr. Speaker, it should be tough on certain crimes, certainly not white-collar crimes, certainly not crimes that allow $3 billion to go out the door when a government is running red ink all over the place. I would think it would want the $3 billion, but it does not because it does not mind raising taxes, but on certain people, those who it does not necessarily feel are within its constituency. Now the folks who can afford to run these offshore tax havens, tax dodges, those are the folks in whom the Conservatives seem very interested. Compare this to the United States; it offered no such amnesty. It simply said it is going after the Swiss accounts to get the money back for the American taxpayers. In Canada, suddenly the Conservatives said, “Here is a haven”, but if average Canadians missed their taxes by $5,000, would they be provided a haven? Would they be provided an amnesty?
In the House of Commons on April 13th, 2010. See this statement in context.