The Trudeau government is sifting through the Panama Papers, and Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier says criminal charges will be laid if possible.
The minister confirmed Monday following question period in the House of Commons that the Canada Revenue Agency obtained the full Panama Papers last week and intends to use the documents to launch audits and go after possible tax cheats.
It took several days to acquire the entire cache of 11.5 million files — from 2.6 terabytes of data — but the last files arrived on Thursday, according to the minister's spokeswoman.
She wouldn't name the exact source, but said Canada acquired the records through its tax treaty partners in the G20.
A portion of the enormous data leak became public on Monday. The Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has made a searchable database available online that allows anyone to look up names of people and companies in the Panama Papers.
The public database does not contain the trove of personal information in the leak such as passport photocopies, emails, bank account numbers or stock certificates.
The Papers consist of files on more than 214,000 offshore companies, trusts and foundations that were set up or administered by Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca over the last 40 years. The law firm is one of the biggest creators of offshore corporations in the world.
While offshore accounts are not in themselves illegal, the leaked records show their secrecy is often exploited to cloak illicit acts like tax evasion, sanctions busting or political corruption
