We, the undersigned, urge Chrystia Freeland, Finance Minister of Canada to take action immediately to shut down tax avoidance havens in countries including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Malta.  It is an international disgrace that, five years after the bombshell revelations in the Panama Papers, a new trove of documents dubbed the Pandora Papers reveals that major corporations and extremely wealthy individuals are using shell companies to avoid an estimated two to five percent of global GDP, or from US$800 billion to US$2 trillion annually.
 
The Economist has stated that "the most obvious use of offshore financial centers is to avoid taxes.”  Though we are aware that some uses of offshore companies are legitimate, and many of these tax avoidance strategies are currently legal; and despite the fact that the Canada Revenue Agency has been funded to control aggressive tax avoidance schemes, the game goes on, unabated.
 
According to the president of Oxfam America, "Tax havens are at the core of a global system that allows large corporations and wealthy individuals to avoid paying their fair share, depriving governments, rich and poor, of the resources they need to provide vital public services and tackle rising inequality.”
 
With these appalling facts in mind, we ask the government of Canada, through Finance Minister Freeland, to lead assertively to shut down international tax havens.  First, Canada and partner nations must work to change the rules to reveal the “beneficial” (real) owners of shell companies; in short, to identify the cheats.  Second, the enabling countries must be made to suffer severe financial sanctions until they remove the vail of secrecy which prevents us from knowing which billionaires and corporations are guilty of massive tax avoidance.  Finally, in cases of legal but immoral tax avoidance, laws must be changed.
 
We, the people, will tolerate nothing less.