Finance committee  Again, Mr. Chairman, we support government initiatives designed to deal with tax evasion, to prosecute it, and to prevent it from happening. Some of the things we've seen over the last few years—the kind of reporting that is required from FINTRAC is a relatively recent initiative

Finance committee  Just generally, it's recognized that bank secrecy in those jurisdictions is something that is much less acceptable than it was in the past. At the same time, we recognize that jurisdictions have the right to pursue a fiscal policy as they see fit, just as Canada has decided to

Finance committee  Again, I'll let my colleague talk about FATCA.

Finance committee  I believe the committee has invited the individual members, and if the committee wishes to invite them again, it's up to the committee, not the CBA, to ask the banks to appear.

Finance committee  Consolidated tax reporting?

Finance committee  I'm not familiar with that.

Finance committee  I think the big carrot is the fact that Canadian banks want to comply with the law. Legal risk is something that they are very mindful of, and also their reputation. I want to take you back to the global financial crisis. We always ask ourselves, why did Canadian banks do so muc

Finance committee  We've heard today examples of banks that have been cited in the press for that kind of behaviour—clearly in support of tax evasion. We do not want to have our name in the press.

Finance committee  Again, I couldn't tell you about the—

Finance committee  I think I said in the opening remarks that individual banks have procedures in place whereby they monitor the behaviour of their employees—

Finance committee  I would say that the operations in all of those jurisdictions are subject to the similar kinds of laws in the United States and in Canada. Reporting anti-money-laundering is an international initiative. Other requirements might be somewhat different from one jurisdiction to ano

Finance committee  Again, my colleague is the right person to answer that.

Finance committee  We'll get back to you in writing on that.

Finance committee  Let me try to take you through the steps, and let me try to be helpful to the committee, as I represent the industry. We identify who is opening the account and understand the source of the income. They have to be able to explain where it came from.

Finance committee  The person has to stand before us to open the account. We're talking about opening an account.