Finance committee  I can only give you my opinion. The OECD would know. I don't know that every country is dealing with it in exactly the same manner, but I'm told there's an effort at that committee, at the OECD, the committee on fiscal affairs, to establish approaches they all agree upon. I think the whistleblower is important for psychological reasons, even though the governments in question....

Finance committee  That's my understanding. Again, I'm four years out of the OECD, so I've basically just been following the traffic on this, as you and others have. I have seen the blacklist has now gone, but that doesn't mean there are no deficiencies. I think there are a lot of deficiencies in the report that was put forward two years ago.

Finance committee  I don't know. I think this goes back to a question that Ms. Hughes raised about not doing business or trading with a country because it's not meeting your standards in taxation. The OECD used to be called the rich man's club when I joined it, which was a bit of an exaggeration, since Turkey had been a member from the outset in 1960, and of course we had other countries coming on.

Finance committee  Global uniformity in terms of transparency, yes, not in terms of tax rates, but in terms of--

Finance committee  Why not?

Finance committee  Because that goes right to the fundamentals of what each government sees as best for its people and keeping its country in balance. For example, you take a country like Denmark--very high personal tax rates, but not high corporate tax rates, so it does get a considerable amount of foreign investment.

Finance committee  I can't really add much to what Mr. Owens said, because I don't have any personal knowledge of it. I've actually followed the activities of this particular debate quite closely. I have felt that taxation is so fundamental in so many areas that I've engaged in it myself, historically.

Finance committee  How is Canada perceived?

Finance committee  An ally?

Finance committee  As a Canadian taxpayer, I am not under the impression that I live in a tax haven.

Finance committee  You said we were an ally. I have a number of thoughts on that. I would like to know how she came up with that figure of $146 billion invested in tax havens. And where does the estimate that Quebec lost 5% or 4% in income come from? People who present those kinds of figures have to back them up.

Finance committee  I would imagine that the investments you are referring to—lost income, as you put it—likely come from sources outside the country, for the most part. The banks have subsidiaries in the islands of Jersey, Guernsey and so on. That money is derived from activities that are not Canadian, activities that take place outside Canada.

Finance committee  When you say binding, in what sense?

Finance committee  I think on the G-20, judgment is still out in a sense. It has obviously a very significant role, because it brings all the big players together, but whether it can effectively play the role has yet to be seen. The G-7, in my experience, actually didn't really do much. It basically mandated others to do things, like the OECD.

Finance committee  I haven't been at any of the G-20 finance.... Probably I was at some of the earlier ones, but I haven't been at the G-20 summits. I don't know how that could be the case. At the G-7 it was not the case. What additional mechanisms have been introduced to the G-20 that would differentiate it from the G-8, for example?