[rubecube]

Does anyone know that backstory on this? Because at first glance, it looks shady as hell.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/harp...case-1.3257994

The Harper government forged a partnership with a major Canadian accounting association, formalizing it as an adviser to the Canada Revenue Agency, at the same time as the group was fighting the CRA in court to shield the files of multimillionaires who had stashed money offshore.

CPA Canada represents and lobbies on behalf of most accounting firms in Canada, including KPMG, which the government was pursuing in court at the time to obtain a list of wealthy clients enrolled in an offshore tax scheme in the Isle of Man.

Three months before the government announced the partnership, Prime Minister Stephen Harper himself met with CPA Canada and the heads of KPMG and other major accounting firms. The exceptional visit on Aug. 13, 2014, to the industry association's headquarters in Toronto was recorded in the federal lobbying registry.

In addition to CPA Canada's intervention in the KPMG case, the association has also been campaigning for limits on what accounting firms have to provide to tax authorities when clients are being audited and investigated. The campaign has included lobbying Ottawa bureaucrats, politicians and their staff on related topics for several years, a review of lobby registry records shows.