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Results: 31 - 45 of 196
View Pat Kelly Profile
CPC (AB)
That's a fantastic point. Hopefully we'll have the minister here on this study at some point, and the minister should answer that question.
It would seem to me that complexity shouldn't enter into it. If you ask for a document and your corporate structure is too complicated to comply, then that should be on the filer.
Debi Daviau
View Debi Daviau Profile
Debi Daviau
2021-05-06 16:11
Mr. Kelly, we used to have international tax units that were very well organized and could work together more effectively to produce those kinds of documents, but those units were broken down some 10 or so years ago in favour of interspersing these tax experts within more generalized teams. That has reduced the capacity of employees at the CRA to be able to deliver on getting international tax avoiders to pay their fair share.
View Sean Fraser Profile
Lib. (NS)
View Sean Fraser Profile
2021-05-06 16:15
Thank you very much, Mr. Cohen. I'll use some of the examples you discussed, particularly in the global context of this problem, for my next question to Ms. Daviau.
Ms. Daviau, you mentioned that one of the things we continue to need to do is explore further initiatives on the international stage and co-operate with our global partners to ensure that we can stamp out tax evasion globally. What actions can the federal government in Canada take to help contribute to the global solution to the issue of tax evasion?
Ryan Campbell
View Ryan Campbell Profile
Ryan Campbell
2021-05-06 16:16
The biggest issue that has been advocated by auditors at the Canada Revenue Agency, based on their work, is to focus on corporate tax evasion. The scale is much larger. The PBO has identified that as much as $25 billion a year could be accessible or unlocked from tax havens if the right provisions were in place. In order to do that, it's really necessary to reorient the way the tax system is structured and to reform the current state.
Right now when an international corporation makes a sale, they have some discretion to transfer the profit or to modify the price within internal supply chains to book the value of that sale in a low-tax jurisdiction. From the standpoint of CRA auditors, it's a game of cat and mouse to try to figure out exactly what the fair market value of that transaction was and determine whether or not it was on the level.
In order to tip the scales back in favour of companies being taxed fairly everywhere, there's a specific combination of different reforms that can be put in place, or broad principles, a combination of which would solve the problem.
One is a formulary allocation of profits, which is basically a change in criteria that are currently in use in Canada that determine how corporations' profits are booked from province to province.
The other is unitary treatment to make sure that when these transactions happen between a parent company and a subsidiary, leading to this transfer pricing and profits being booked in low-tax jurisdictions instead of where the commerce actually happens, the corporations are treated globally as a unitary entity—
Richard Fadden
View Richard Fadden Profile
Richard Fadden
2021-05-03 18:38
Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon.
I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you didn't vet my comments and provide a little context to the issue, as opposed to speaking in great detail about the specific topic of foreign interference.
I think it's important when we look at this Chinese practice, along with a raft of others, to think of the Chinese as our strategic adversaries. What I would like to talk about more than anything is what it should mean for Canada if we accept that.
I think as a precondition to dealing effectively with the Chinese on foreign interference and on anything else, we have to accept that they have a coordinated and centralized policy, an activity development program, that enables them to use all the tools they have at their disposal—foreign, defence, security and trade policy. My metamessage this afternoon is that if we are going to deal effectively with the Chinese, we have to do the same. We cannot look at foreign interference in isolation from trade activity or diplomatic initiatives in the Far East or Indo-China. We have to have a coordinated activity.
I have a couple of metapoints, if I may. First, I think we need to be realistic. China is the second most powerful country on the planet. We're a middle power among many. Except when our sovereignty is directly impacted, I'm not sure there's a great deal we can do alone to affect how the Chinese are going to treat their objectives and how they are going to carry out their objectives. If we are to have an impact on the Chinese, we must use every multilateral tool at our disposal. If the UN doesn't work, we should try the Five Eyes, the G7 and the margins of NATO. They all provide many opportunities for ministers and officials to exchange views and coordinate action.
Let me touch upon what we should do when our sovereignty is directly affected by Chinese action. We need to recognize it, first of all, and develop some sort of consensus on what that is. When we cannot stop it, and when it is not stopped, we need to take some action. Foreign influence is an activity that comes to mind. By any definition, this is unacceptable and is an assault on our sovereignty and a threat to our citizens. There is no reason we cannot discuss this common problem—this is a common problem shared by many of our allies—and coordinate any push-back.
When the Chinese activity is more indirect—too many Chinese students in universities, the extent of Chinese grants to research in areas sensitive our national security—we need to do something in this area as well. Because they affect areas other than our national security interests, they are more difficult to deal with, but they cannot be ignored in the face of control exercised by the Chinese state.
Coming back to my effort at setting out a metapoint, I submit that Canada cannot effectively deal with organized and centrally controlled Chinese activity without itself being organized and coordinated. I mean that our response needs to be whole-of-government at the level of the Government of Canada and to be national at the level of the country.
By “whole of government”, I mean that our reaction to unacceptable Chinese behaviour can't be limited to just CSIS, CSE and occasionally DND and GAC. Rather, it must encompass all elements of the Government of Canada. ISED and Natural Resources come to mind. By “national”, I mean that the responsibilities of the federal government for protecting our sovereignty and the control it has over our border means that it entails federal governmental activity throughout the private sector and civil society, and in some matters potentially affecting the province.
I stress again that we're not going to be able to deal with foreign influence or any other unacceptable Chinese activity unless we admit we have a problem and we coordinate it internally and with our closest allies. This is not necessarily very easy. It's not easy for any number of reasons. I just want to flag one: Not all Chinese citizens and not all Chinese activities are undertaking activities that are harmful to Canada. Distinguishing between the kinds of activities that Professor Ong talked about and those other activities that are perfectly fine is a great deal more difficult than it sounds on the surface. The only way we're going to do this is if we talk about it and articulate what we consider to be unacceptable, ideally coming up with standards that are very similar across our allies.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.
View Joël Lightbound Profile
Lib. (QC)
You were talking about the Five Eyes alliance. In your remarks, you said it was important to use multilateral tools, such as the Five Eyes, the G7 or perhaps other activities in the margin of meetings of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO.
What degree of cooperation do you think is necessary to deal with this situation brought on by China?
Richard Fadden
View Richard Fadden Profile
Richard Fadden
2021-05-03 18:53
Cooperation is very extensive within the Five Eyes alliance. As for the G7, its member countries are discussing the situation and know that it is serious. However, there are currently so many other issues to consider on a global scale that it is difficult to ask G7 leaders to look beyond a certain point.
As for NATO, we should take advantage of the fact that our major allies are its members and, although the situation involving China is discussed only in the margin of big meetings, it would be worthwhile to talk about it a bit more.
View Lianne Rood Profile
CPC (ON)
That's okay. I'll move on, because we're running out of time.
I'd like to direct a question to Ms. Ward.
We had the pleasure of having a conversation before, and I appreciated that conversation. You touched on some of the points about reducing agriculture emissions in Canada, but we know that agriculture and farmers have done a lot of things already on their own, even over the last decade, to reduce emissions.
You mentioned to me before that you are a member of a larger organization that is part of a group of about 200,000 members or so. It has 182 organizations in 81 countries, so I'm wondering if you can comment here.
We're focused on Canada, but we only have 2% of the world's emissions. What are you doing as part of those organizations to help agriculture in other countries to reduce emissions?
Katie Ward
View Katie Ward Profile
Katie Ward
2021-04-27 15:47
The organization you're referencing is called La Via Campesina. It is an international organization of peasant and small-scale farmers and fisher folks from across the world. Many of the organizations are, in their home countries, engaged in food sovereignty issues and work against deforestation, which is, of course, a prime driver of emissions in a lot of developing countries.
In a lot of cases where some of these smaller organizations are engaged, the emissions issues are less from agriculture in a lot of countries than they are from energy production. It doesn't tend to be a primary focus of those organizations. However, some of our sister organizations in the EU, for example, are actively engaged in emissions reduction practices and education, just as we are here.
View Jack Harris Profile
NDP (NL)
Thank you, Chair.
Ms. Bartholomew, your interchange with Mr. Genuis interested me in that you seem to have a slightly different view from Mr. Genuis, who seems to think that we—i.e., the democracies—must get together and stave off China and its friends. You suggested a little bit more of a nuanced response to that in terms of not disengaging totally with China, obviously, but also in making sure that we're engaged with other players to convince them, or to work with them, to develop better norms. Could you elaborate on that a little bit, please?
Carolyn Bartholomew
View Carolyn Bartholomew Profile
Carolyn Bartholomew
2021-04-19 19:21
I don't want to leave the impression that I don't agree that democracies need to get together. I think they do, because, again, I think our own united front.... You know, our values stand for something and they stand for something around the world, and I think that we diminish the importance of those values.
That said, I think we have to recognize that there are times when we are need to work with countries that might not align with us completely on things like human rights. Would I invite the Government of Vietnam to join an alliance of democracies? No. However, would I believe that there are ways that we need to work with the Government of Vietnam to address concerns about what's happening in the region? My answer would be yes. I think in that sense, the fluidity is that we just have to acknowledge that there's not going to be a 100% purity test with the countries that we need to engage with around the world.
That said, there is a core group of western liberal democracies that I think really need to work together on all of these issues.
Christian Leuprecht
View Christian Leuprecht Profile
Christian Leuprecht
2021-04-19 20:43
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee. It will be my pleasure to answer questions in both official languages, but I will make my presentation in English.
I think China poses the greatest threats to Canadian western foreign policy in decades. You can see its military strength and how it compensates for some of its weaknesses there, with its economic weight and its global ambitions. I think the basic line here is that Canadians need to start seeing the world for what it is rather than what we would like it to be. It is a highly competitive, highly contested world of geopolitical conflict, of permanent conflict below the threshold of conventional war or nuclear attack. What we see here is just part of this broad spectrum wherein we're being pressed hard on many fronts. This has been the case since 2008.
I think the relationship with China is best described as “competitive interdependence”. Alaska is a good example. We had an hour of grandstanding on both sides, and then we had eight hours of strategic dialogue on key issues of common interest. We need to understand that while there are many issues in terms of competitive interdependence in which we are fundamentally interlinked—economically, for instance—there are also many issues and interests on which we have fundamentally irreconcilable differences. I think the takeaway is that Canada can't impose its will on China, but Canada also must not accept a subordinate role in that relationship. We have to get ready for long-term, systemic competition.
The competition is fundamentally about how we unlock the potential of our people and how we achieve our national ambitions. This is ultimately more about competition than about confrontation per se. Sometimes you just need to co-operate with your competitors. This is not a monochromatic relationship, and this is why, I think, we're here tonight. To the committee's credit, you're wrestling with this extremely challenging and complex relationship in which we also have inescapable interdependence on everything from knowledge economies to issues such as Iran and North Korea.
What can Canada do? We need to realize what we can and can’t do. We won’t decide China’s regime type, and we can’t determine the size of China’s economy. We can, for instance, realize that the four attributes—which I can't go into for reasons of time—in the formula that has gotten China to this point over the last 40 years no longer apply. What lies ahead is not going to be a linear trajectory of the kind we've seen in the past. China's judgment here is that it is no longer in a stable relationship with the U.S., so it needs to strengthen itself for strategic competition. I think Canada needs to do likewise. It needs to fortify itself with its friends.
One of the things we need to do is to counter the Chinese narrative that the east is rising and the west is in decline. Chinese media are great purveyors of narratives, and authoritarian systems always excel at showcasing their strengths and concealing their weaknesses. We need to learn to distinguish between image and reality and not inadvertently buy in. Let's have some self-confidence. Let's not inflate the threat or weaponize it for political purposes.
Let's also realize that China is not 10 feet tall, that alarmism doesn't help us here, and that China has lots of vulnerabilities. Canada is much better positioned than China to meet the challenges of the 21st century in terms of per capita GDP, energy and food security, demographics, education, social harmony, immigration, allocation of capital, transparent geopolitical systems and so forth.
Instead of focusing on how we can degrade China's strengths, we need to focus on how we can bolster our own. By doing that, it's going to be easier to unite our allies. The key aspect about influence is that we need to make the choices. We need to choose the issues that are important to us and on which we want to make a difference. On those issues, we need to shrink the gap with our allies. We need to boost our domestic dynamism and we need to capitalize on our global network and our alliances and partnerships.
In the previous session, there were many mentions of the Five Eyes. Of course, the Five Eyes is no longer just a signals intelligence community. There are law enforcement components, border components, human intelligence components and financial intelligence components. There's a lot that we are doing and a lot more that can be done. We need to shore up our global prestige, because that's something that China doesn't control. It's something that we control.
We need to ask ourselves questions. What is of national interest to Canada? Pick the example, for instance, of Xinjiang, or pick any other case studies. We need to lead by example. We need to speak out clearly and consistently. We need to make it clear to China that there is not going to be a normal relationship as long as that long shadow is cast over the relationship. We need to be attentive to the goods and items that are being produced with forced labour, as has already been pointed out.
We need to—
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm accompanied today by François Daigle, the associate deputy minister of the Department of Justice. Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today.
I'd like to make some general comments on some of the issues raised during previous meetings of the committee's study.
I'd like to emphasize that the government is committed to keeping our children safe, including online, as Minister Blair just said. Canada's criminal legislation in this area are among the most comprehensive in the world.
The Criminal Code prohibits all forms of making, distributing, transmitting, making available, accessing, selling, advertising, exporting and possessing child pornography, which the Criminal Code broadly defines as material involving the depiction of sexual exploitation of persons under the age of 18 years.
The Criminal Code also prohibits luring—that is, communicating with a young person, using a computer, including online, for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person. It prohibits agreeing to or making arrangements with another person to commit a sexual offence against a child, and it prohibits providing sexually explicit material to a young person for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a sexual offence against that young person.
Furthermore, the Criminal Code also prohibits voyeurism and the non-consensual distribution of intimate images, which are particularly germane to both the online world and the discussion we are having today.
Offences of a general application may also apply to criminal conduct that takes place online or that is facilitated by the use of the Internet. For example, criminal harassment and human trafficking offences may apply, depending upon the facts of the case.
Courts are also authorized to order the removal of child sexual exploitation material and other criminal content, such as intimate images, voyeuristic material or hate propaganda, where it is being made available to the public from a server in Canada.
In addition to the Criminal Code, as Minister of Justice, I'm responsible for the Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide and Internet service. This act doesn't have a short title, but law practitioners refer to it as the mandatory reporting act.
In English, it's the mandatory reporting act, or MRA.
Under the mandatory reporting act, Internet service providers in Canada have two main obligations. The first is to contact the Canadian Centre for Child Protection when they receive child pornography complaints from their subscribers. This centre is the non-governmental agency that operates Cybertip.ca, the national tipline for reporting the online sexual exploitation of children.
The second obligation of Internet service providers is to inform the provincial or territorial police when there are reasonable grounds to believe that its Internet services have been used to commit a child pornography offence.
While Canada's laws are comprehensive, it is my understanding that there has been some concern as to how they are being interpreted and implemented, especially in relation to the troubling media reports about MindGeek and its Pornhub site.
Since I am the Minister of Justice, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on ongoing or potential investigations or prosecutions, but I would also note that the responsibility for the administration of criminal justice, including the investigation and prosecution of such crimes, including the sexual exploitation offences, falls largely on my provincial colleagues and counterparts.
However, as the Prime Minister stated during question period on February 3:
...cracking down on illegal online content is something we are taking very, very seriously. Whether it is hate speech, terrorism, child exploitation or any other illegal acts....
In fact, the government takes these measures so seriously that the Prime Minister has given four ministers the mandate to address different aspects of online harms. Minister Blair and I are two of these ministers. As he has mentioned, the Minister of Canadian Heritage is one of the lead [Technical difficulty—Editor] as well.
While the Internet has provided many benefits to Canada and the world, it has also provided criminals with a medium that extends their reach—and thus, their victim base—and a medium that elevates the level of complexity of investigations. One complicating factor is that telecommunications networks and services transcend international borders, while the enforcement authority of police, such as the RCMP, is generally limited to their domestic jurisdiction.
Further, under international law, court orders are generally enforceable only within the jurisdiction of a state. With limited exceptions, their enforcement requires the consent of the other state in which they are sought to be enforced.
Canada is obviously not the only country facing these challenges, which is why we continue to work with our international partners to facilitate international co-operation in the investigation and prosecution of these crimes, notably to strengthen bilateral co-operation and negotiation of new international mutual legal assistance treaties in criminal matters in order to address these issues.
Although mutual legal assistance treaties are a universally accepted method of requesting and obtaining international assistance in criminal matters, even in emergency situations, they weren't designed for the Internet age, where digital evidence is a common component of most criminal investigations and where timeliness is essential to the collection of this evidence because of its volatility.
Canada is actively working with its international partners to address these issues. For example, we are currently participating in the negotiation of a second protocol to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime to enhance international co-operation on cross-border access to data.
Thank you.
View Bill Blair Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus, for what is a very important question.
As you've already indicated, we do supply funding to the RCMP to run the National Child Exploitation Crime Centre, which has a number of significant responsibilities, including the investigation of these predators to gather the evidence to bring them to court and to prosecute them. It also has the purpose of identifying and rescuing victims on the international front.
Because of the nature of online harms generally, and certainly of this most terrible crime, there is a very significant international component. That's why, in the five-country ministerial meetings that I have attended for each the last three years, the focus in each of those meetings has been on online child sexual [Technical difficulty—Editor] and implementation of principles to guide industry efforts to combat online crimes and child sexual exploitation.
In addition, we are part of an initiative called the WePROTECT Global Alliance, which is a movement dedicated to national and global action to end sexual exploitation of children online. It includes like-minded states, NGOs and civil society organizations.
Finally, Mr. Fergus, I would point out that the RCMP actually chairs a group called the Virtual Global Taskforce on child exploitation. This is an international law enforcement alliance that is engaged in intelligence sharing, data sharing and dealing with this issue globally. I think it is a demonstration of both Canada's commitment and the RCMP's global leadership on this critically important issue.
View David Lametti Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Fergus, I would just add that we're working with other countries on mutual legal assistance treaties to facilitate the exchange of information between our police forces, multilateral conventions on cybercrime, as well as bilateral agreements with countries such as the United States, for example, to facilitate the exchange of information in a context where it needs to be done quickly.
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