Official Hansard
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this bill today, because I think it is a good one and my party agrees. I announced in my question that we will be supporting this bill at second reading so that we can carefully study it in committee. This bill is important because it deals with the effective recovery of monies as well as with transparency. I think transparency is essential and that is what I will be focusing my comments on today: transparency and access to information. We cannot call for improvements, suggest solutions or explore new options if we do not know what is happening. That is the crux of the issue. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made it quite clear that he approved of the previous versions of this bill. This is not the first time that this legislation has come before the House. I was pleased to hear the parliamentary secretary say that the government is going to support the bill at second reading. That means we will be able to study it. I was pleased because, when I read up on the bill's history earlier, I learned that the majority Liberal Party at the time had rejected one of the initial versions of the bill, citing privacy reasons. It is always easy for the government to find excuses when it does not want to be completely open about something, when it does not want to be transparent and especially when it does not want an agency's underperformance to be on full display. However, the government needs to have that courage. Until it finds it, there will be no improvement. I was therefore worried about the position of this new majority government, which does not reflect the results of the last election. We will repeat this again from time to time. The reality is that they have a majority because members crossed the floor. We must accept that. That said, I would go even further. The bill states that the tax gap must be published. The tax gap is the money the government believes it should have collected but did not. What income taxes and other amounts should have been collected, and what was actually received? If the figures do not add up, people may lose patience, but everything hinges on knowing the truth and on the public putting pressure on the government. I believe this bill will help the general public, but it will help opposition MPs more so. It will help us force the government to be more effective in collecting this money. I would also include in this any agreements that may have been reached between the CRA and businesses regarding debt write-offs, relief measures or equity proposals aimed at waiving interest, fees or penalties, because I believe the public deserves to know. The average worker who earns, say, $45,000 a year, made a mistake on their tax return and has to pay the money back with interest might well be interested to learn that millions of dollars have been forgiven for businesses. It might also be interesting to know that the Prime Minister's companies are engaging in tax avoidance, which is unfortunately legal. That is why I asked my colleagues a question earlier, because they seemed to be saying that certain information would be published. That would be great. However, from what I understand, what will be published mainly concerns tax evasion, that is, cases where people have been found guilty of tax offences. This is too bad, but when someone is found guilty of an offence, their right to privacy disappears a bit. We are talking about transparency. It is important not to go too far. However, it is a bit like when someone is convicted of a criminal offence in court. Unfortunately for them, it is public. At a certain point, privacy can become an excuse in many of these cases. I would go further and also look at tax avoidance. Canada has a lot of experience with that. One need only think of Canadian Steamship Lines, which belonged to the family of Paul Martin, our former prime minister. Since then, we have gained some historical hindsight. Today, it is Brookfield that we often hear about, but we know very little about it. It would be interesting to know how much money has been transferred to tax havens to avoid paying a fair share. Earlier, my colleague, who introduced the bill and sponsored it for the senator who introduced it, explained in his speech that when a person or a company does not pay their share, it goes beyond their failure to pay. Other people, meaning us, have to pick up the slack and make up the difference. There is the guy who declared everything and is paying his share, and there is the guy next door, who is dishonest, who is hiding money and who is not paying what he owes. If he gets caught and we manage to recover the money, and if it is all out in the open to a certain extent, I would say that no harm is done, because it could encourage him not to do it again. I am not sure that if a member of Parliament were to engage in tax avoidance or tax evasion, it would remain secret for very long. Why would that not apply to everyone? Let us treat everyone equally. We stand in solidarity. That is important. I want to quickly come back to tax havens. I know that they are not addressed in the bill, but they should be. I do not know whether we will be able to go so far as to include tax evasion within the scope of the bill, but I think we should. In 2024, Canada passed legislation to impose a minimum tax rate of 15% on companies that generate and declare their profits abroad before repatriating them here. I hope that law will be enforced. We are still waiting to see the results. Will that law be fully enforced? Will it be effective? Only time will tell. We need to see the numbers to know for sure. To get those numbers, I think a bill like Bill S-217 is a very useful tool. That is basically what I wanted to say. Pressure needs to be exerted and the money owed must be recovered. Some say it is owed to the government, but that is not entirely accurate. Yes, the government acts as an intermediary, but that money is owed to society. It is owed to the community. Society needs things like public services, resources, a defence system and all kinds of things, but they all cost money. We are not living in a fairytale. These things do not appear out of thin air. They have to be purchased. If some folks do not have the integrity to do their part, I think it is okay to give them a little nudge and tell them they also have to do their bit. If there is a risk that their name will get out when they get caught, that could help encourage many of these folks to do the right thing. That argument therefore seems pretty weak. There is also the question of what has been recovered, based on the historical figures we have. I have some figures here. Between 2014 and 2022, the gross tax gap was $59.5 billion, and approximately $10.8 billion of that is said to have been recovered from personal income tax. On the corporate side, out of $23.5 billion, $9.3 billion is said to have been recovered. That is not bad, but it is not huge either. The government could certainly do better. By sharing this information, by making it publicly available, we will be better able to take action and come up with more innovative ideas. The Canada Revenue Agency will be able to improve, and everyone will benefit. To conclude, I want to reiterate that we must also urgently tackle tax havens. It is a serious injustice that companies protect their profits abroad. They claim that it is not tax avoidance. During the election campaign, the Prime Minister had the nerve to tell us that it is not tax avoidance because this money flows back to individuals through pension funds. Individuals, for their part, pay tax. The message we are getting is that the little people have to pay and the rich will not. This is a social injustice, and a serious one at that. It is a very dangerous message.
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