Finance committee  Well, we have her testimony before you, I think, in an exchange with you about the view that it has a higher standing than ordinary law, if you will.

Finance committee  To that I think what I had said earlier and sort of amplified or perhaps more authoritatively spoken to by the Privacy Commissioner is that there doesn't appear to be a conflict to overcome.

Finance committee  Myself, personally?

Finance committee  I couldn't say. There are 90 treaties in place and 20 TIAs. We have our own chief of tax treaty negotiations. I'm not that person, but I've been involved in some manner in a lot of those.

Finance committee  Yes, the same assessment is made of this legislation as all other, I think, yes.

Finance committee  I'm sorry; the question started off by referring to—

Finance committee  Do you mean on the constitutional question, or other matters?

Finance committee  I'll try to answer your question as well as I'm able to. With respect to constitutional matters, I think we said earlier that the Minister of Justice is charged with reviewing legislation and advising Parliament if there is concern that the legislation is not constitutional. W

Finance committee  With respect to the Privacy Act, it is, as I've already said, that we kept the Privacy Commissioner informed. I think the way I expressed it before is that I'm not aware that the Privacy Commissioner or the privacy office will bless legislation per se, but they offer comments.

Finance committee  I'm not aware of an opinion from Justice having been sought on the Privacy Act question. That was dealt with through the Privacy Commissioner.

Finance committee  Yes, I'll try to be succinct. To the point first of all as to whether or not U.S. citizens are intended to be captured in the agreement, I think without hesitation the answer has to be yes. The agreement describes a U.S. person as including a U.S. citizen or resident individual

Finance committee  Yes, it would. Under FATCA, the financial institution is charged with the obligation. It is required to agree to collecting this information. If it doesn't collect it, then one of the penalties that can be imposed—or the incentives, if you can put it that way—on the client to mak

Finance committee  I'm sorry; I did mean to answer your question in a sense that the power for us as government is to say that the agreement's not being upheld. As to your question directly, I don't know the answer, whether or not there's some right of damages or recourse. I think the only action

Finance committee  Not for the taxpayer or persons themselves.

Finance committee  Well, the intergovernmental agreement achieves a number of different benefits, but on this particular point, the ability to collect information under our own law and provide it to the Canada Revenue Agency and then to transmit it under our own law and the Canada-U.S. tax treaty s