Absolutely, Mr. Speaker. I applaud the member for the question. At the end of the day, we lose billions of dollars in annual revenues that should be coming into our coffers. Can anyone imagine what we could do with those billions of dollars? It could go to deficit reduction, reducing other forms of taxes for the middle class and others, or not having to increase other forms of revenue. If only we had a government that was prepared to do more.
Canada is lagging behind, and that is the reason I used the example of the $150 million that was put into fighting tax evasion back in 2005 under the last Liberal administration. That $150 million is ultimately responsible for generating close to $2 billion. That is a whole lot of money that I would argue assisted in preventing us from having to increase other taxes.
Again, I want to emphasize that Canadians as a whole believe that taxation is something in which people have to participate. People have to pay taxes, but we ask that taxes are fair and that we do not allow individuals to get away with things such as tax evasion. This upsets people, and justifiably so. People who put in 40-hour work weeks making $20 or $25 an hour, or whatever it might be, are paying hard taxes. They want to ensure that the guy who is making $3 million a year or $500,000 a year is also paying his taxes. They have a right to feel comfortable in knowing their government truly cares, to the degree in which it is going to fight to ensure that everyone is paying their fair share.
We need to invest more time, energy and resources, and work toward international multilateral agreements on information sharing.