Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the very interesting discussion on a tax treaty with Madagascar. Some people may have thought this would not be too stimulating a discussion, but he made it very interesting and very appropriate for the times.
I want to bring up one example of a tax haven, which I have brought up many times in the House. A mining company in Vancouver had a mine in Mongolia and made a huge profit there. Over a period of five years, I think it should have paid Canada $600 million in taxes and should have paid Mongolia $200 million in taxes, but instead, it opened a post office box in Luxembourg and paid Luxembourg $80 million in taxes, about one-tenth of what it should have paid. The kicker is that the company contacted CRA and asked if it was okay, and CRA said it was fine; Canada has a tax agreement with Luxembourg, so it could fill its boots.
I am wondering if the member could comment on the problem of these tax agreements being abused. I spoke to a tax lawyer once who said that the simplest thing would be to have a minimum tax put in these agreements, say 20%, so that the agreements could not be abused. Companies would be paying more or less the same tax they would pay in Canada so that they would not be tempted to funnel all their money out of our country, causing Canada to lose taxes.