Mr. Speaker, again, we did have the opportunity to listen to a number of speeches this morning from the government and the opposition sides. With all due respect, the opposition brought forward concerns regarding the FATCA agreement, which this member has talked about, and there are many people across Canada who are questioning exactly what FATCA is. Let me say that the agreement addresses those concerns.
The agreement addresses the concerns that Canadians had when the United States imposed certain regulations based on the treaties it has with many different countries. Consequently, this government responded very quickly and negotiated a very solid intergovernmental agreement, or IGA, with the Americans. It is an agreement that relies on the existing tax framework under the Canada-U.S. tax treaty.
CRA will not assist the Americans, it will not assist the IRS, in collecting U.S. taxes. Also, there are no new taxes being implemented through FATCA, and no new taxes that Canadians need to worry about. In our negotiations, we obtained a number of significant concessions that would not normally have been included, such as not including RRSPs in disclosure, not including RDSPs, not including tax-free savings accounts, and many others.
Again, FATCA is a policy that is here basically to safeguard Canadians.