Finance committee  Distinguished members of the committee, Mr. Chair, on behalf of BMO Financial Group, I'm pleased to join my colleagues from other financial institutions to assist in your discussion of tax havens and tax evasion. As you know, my colleagues from the other financial institutions ma

Finance committee  I am at the end, Mr. Chair. The same is true for foreign nationals who invest in Canada, who do not want to see the capital they have invested in our economy penalized by the impact of Canadian tax liability on income from Canadian sources, while at the same time being taxed in

Finance committee  Multilateral.

Finance committee  I would refer that to the specialists in compliance. I am not in that field.

Finance committee  First, Canada has signed slightly over 80 double taxation agreements. I am not including agreements for the exchange of information in those agreements. About 190 countries are members of the United Nations. So we can see that there are double taxation agreements with fewer than

Finance committee  Should they be individual or multilateral? A multilateral agreement promotes a healthier exchange.

Finance committee  As well, the exchange must be done on request or be mandatory, again based on the information. All of that is subject to the constraints imposed by the Charter and by privacy legislation. These are very complex areas.

Finance committee  I cannot really comment because it is difficult to determine what the aggressive tax planning in issue is. It is hard to establish figures like that with any certainty. These are evaluations that could be analyzed...

Finance committee  I respect Mr. Béland, but that does not mean I can assess the weight of his claim.

Finance committee  I couldn't comment on that because it's not really a matter I have crossed paths with.

Finance committee  It's not my expertise.

Finance committee  It would be the same.

Finance committee  May I say that all the answers you have heard from the other witnesses would be essentially the same from a BMO representative, essentially the same. They would be similar. So what was the purpose of my coming here? It was simply to bring another angle.

Finance committee  The definition of a tax haven can vary widely and depends on many things. You have given one from an economist. To some Canadians, Alberta is a tax haven. To some people, it is always the place where you pay the least tax. To others, as you say, it will be a place where there is

Finance committee  I would ask this. Are these financial destinations the end destinations, or are they places of transit for the funds? That distinction has to be made. Most of the time, with the exception of Ireland, these are countries of transit, not countries of destination.