Finance committee  I want a chance to set the stopwatch here to make sure that I stay on time, Mr. Chair.

Finance committee  I appreciate the passion of my colleague opposite. I say that sincerely. Thank you very much to both of you for being here this morning. I have a few questions. They are general ones because I think we're still trying to get a very general sense of the issue. It's complex, but it's highly important.

Finance committee  Thank you.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. Indeed, that is what it appears to be. When countries pool their resources and work together in this way, I think we have a more efficient process that serves the citizen in a much better and effective way. Again, thinking from a constituent's perspective—and I note here the press release from back in June of 2018 that speaks about this particular bill.

Finance committee  Good. I think my constituents like to hear the words “protection” and “taxpayer” put together, so that's very helpful. I have one final question for you relating to mandatory binding arbitration. Would the Canada Revenue Agency need additional funding to meet the obligations set out in the arbitration provisions of the convention, in your view?

Finance committee  What would be the implications if this bill didn't exist, to sum everything up? From an efficiency perspective—I go back to the point that I started with.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the officials for being here this morning on what it is truly a technical matter, but a very important one. Mr. Julian has cited a number now. I believe he said it was $240 billion to $250 billion. I can't remember exactly. It's one of the two, Mr.

Finance committee  I wasn't—

Finance committee  I'm not saying you're misleading—

Finance committee  I'm saying that the substance of your comments could imply what I said. That point of information on the OECD comes from the Library of Parliament, which we're very fortunate to have with us and briefing us on these issues, Mr. Chair. First of all, if I could, I wanted to go over with you this entire process.

Finance committee  Thank you very much. If I can follow that up with a question on audit completion times, variations when it comes to particular regions and other issues. I did want to ask a question about international and large businesses, regarding how audits completed in some regions are done much quicker than others.

Finance committee  I do. As you know, a key finding in the report was that CRA waived interest and penalties for some taxpayers, but didn't for others. Why was that the case and what will be done to address this?

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the officials for being here today. First of all, we keep hearing that the minister didn't stay, that she wasn't here long enough. I think if my colleagues had their way we would be here until Christmas questioning the minister. The minister did not “run for the hills”, as my colleague opposite said.

Finance committee  Down that hallway, that's very good. Turning to the officials, in looking at the Auditor General's report, we do see that there are some problems, which I hope will be worked on. First of all, the Auditor General reports that there has been inconsistent time given to taxpayers to respond to requests for information when audits take place.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The last thing I want to do is challenge the chair. All I wanted to say is that I know I speak for the vast majority of the members of this committee when I say that you always run a fair meeting, and that my colleague ought to know, if he checked his email, which is not very difficult, that the agenda for this meeting was sent out in a very timely way.