Almost 7,000 Canadian citizens have voluntarily disclosed hidden assets and offshore accounts, including 90 clients of UBS, according to a report by AFP, quoting official Canadian government sources.

They revealed they had not paid taxes on C$1.66 billion ($1.58 billion) of assets, National Revenue Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn was quoted by the news agency as saying.

The UBS clients among them owed about C$15 million in taxes, he said. Forty-four of the cases have been settled while negotiations continue with the others to sort out exactly how much is owed to government coffers.

In September, Canadian tax officials met with UBS bank officials in a much-publicized bid to uncover Canadian fortunes hidden in offshore accounts.

The moves in Canada took place after the Swiss and US governments struck a historic agreement under which UBS will hand over 4,450 client account names to the US authorities. In February, UBS agreed in a separate, criminal case to pay a $780 million fine to settle charges it enabled tax evasion.

In the Canadian case, Mr Blackburn said that if UBS did not co-operate, “we'll go to court to get the information”.