“I want the House to pass this bill to committee. It makes the Canada Revenue Agency publish a list of everyone convicted of tax evasion. It also forces the agency to measure how much tax money is owed but not paid, and to share that data with the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Canada has fallen behind other countries in catching people who hide money overseas, and we need this information to fix the problem.”

“moved that Bill S-217, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (reporting on unpaid income tax), be read the second time and referred to a committee. He said: Mr. Speaker, it is an absolute pleasure to rise in this chamber again to speak on a very important issue to Canadians. Before I start, I want to pay tribute to a local individual, Mr. Dan Newman, who recently passed away. He was a two-time elected member of the provincial parliament and cabinet minister in the Ontario legislature from 1995 and re-elected in 1999. Dan was a dear friend of mine, a dear friend to many in the community, a quick wit and a wonderful individual. I would like to give his family my sincere condolences on behalf of all those in Simcoe North. I am sure they miss him deeply after his very unexpected passing. Thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, given that you seem to be in a giving mood tonight, I also wish my brother and my good friend Stephen Graham happy belated birthday, to give them a tribute in this speech. Just crossing the desk, I want to make sure the House is fully aware that the Prime Minister was in New York today, and he said that a strong Canada would “help make America great again”. I did not have it on my bingo card that the Prime Minister would be embracing MAGA principles, but I seem to always be amazed by the opportunism of the Prime Minister. Getting back to the issue at hand, it is an important bill that we are debating here tonight. I would like to start by thanking the House again for its co-operation on another bill, which I think is adjacent to this one, Bill C-230, which we passed here unanimously just a few weeks ago. This bill, Bill S-217, is basically identical to the bill by Senator Percy Downe that passed in the Senate three times. Senator Downe stands as an example to all parliamentarians that, with persistence and good-natured collaboration and engagement, good ideas have a real chance of becoming law in this country. Senator Downe has been talking about the issues of tax evasion and the efficacy of the CRA in carrying out its primary objective of collecting the tax monies that are owed to the federal government. He has been highlighting these issues for many years and raising concerns about the actions of the CRA in pursuing individuals who participate in overseas tax evasion, which is evading taxes paid in Canada by using overseas tax havens. Members will recall the Panama papers, a very well-publicized, international exposé by journalists, who later had their lives threatened and in fact had violence perpetrated against them. The Panama papers identified a number of Canadians who had assets hidden away in overseas tax havens. To date, there have been no Canadians convicted of overseas tax evasion from the Panama papers. This is one of the reasons for which Senator Downe has brought forward this legislation. The legislation, in my mind, does a few key things. Number one, it would require greater transparency at the CRA to publish the list of individuals who are convicted of tax evasion. Number two, which is also a serious issue that we have dealt with many times in this chamber and in the government as a whole, is the ability of the Parliamentary Budget Officer to receive relevant data and information from the Canada Revenue Agency. This bill would require the Canada Revenue Agency to produce data and information and make that available to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, so the Parliamentary Budget Officer could complete independent analysis on the tax gap. “What is the tax gap?” one might ask. The tax gap is an assessment of what the CRA believes it is owed on an annual basis by taxpayers, corporations and individuals, versus what it is actually able to receive: that is, what taxes are assessed and what taxes are collected. The Parliamentary Budget Officer should be doing an independent analysis of this tax gap. The bill would also require the CRA to produce its own estimation of the tax gap so that it can be viewed by parliamentarians. This is consistent with best practices in other jurisdictions around the world. These are the three main points of the bill. I have to commend Senator Downe for a number of things, such as his leadership in making sure that these issues are not forgotten from Parliament to Parliament. Senator Downe has passed this bill three times in its basic exact form over previous Parliaments. This is the third time the bill is coming to this chamber. I am on the record suggesting that the current majority status of this Parliament is a disadvantage to Canadians because that was not the result of the last election at the ballot box. However, if there is a silver lining to the majority status of this Parliament, and the fact that we may be here for a little while longer, it is that it will give the House the opportunity to properly consider, review and potentially amend this bill and to make it law, because it has been sent here three times and the House has been unable to make it law. We owe Senator Downe this effort because of his persistence and leadership on this issue. He has convinced his colleagues in the Senate three times that the bill ought to become law. I think all members in this chamber should be willing to work together to examine this bill at committee. I was very proud to put my name on the bill in this chamber for a number of reasons, but also because Senator Downe has worked very closely with me on some of my private member’s bills, one on money laundering in the last Parliament and, yet again, in this Parliament with Bill C-230, which, as I mentioned, passed here unanimously a couple of weeks ago and which is complementary to this bill in so many ways. I would like to just talk a little about the bill in the words of Senator Downe. When taxpayers cheat, the rest of Canadians make up the shortfall. Taxes rise to cover the balance. The government is forced to take on more debt. Debt service payments increase, and the debt gets paid forward to the next generation. Enforcing compliance with Canada’s tax laws and collecting monies owed to government is a core mandate of the CRA, but how well is the CRA fulfilling its responsibilities? Consider overseas tax evasion. Story after story follows the same pattern. A news story will break, and the CRA appears with its regular talking points: They are working hard to catch overseas tax evaders; they take it seriously; they have identified monies that are owed to the government; the work is ongoing to collect those monies. However, the results are ultimately disappointing. I mentioned previously the 2016 Panama papers, the disclosures of overseas tax evasion. Other countries with citizens involved in this scandal have collected billions of dollars in taxes owed. A recent article by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the journalists who broke the story, lists Australia as having recovered $44 million; Germany, $87 million; and Spain, $175 million. Iceland, a country of just 340,000, recovered $25 million. Canada, however, after 10 years, has not announced the recovery of a nickel. Approximately 900 Canadians were identified as having accounts linked to the Panama papers. Not one person has been charged, much less convicted of this tax evasion, a stark contrast to what has happened in other countries. The fairness for all Canadian taxpayers act, introduced by Senator Downe, would require the government, as I mentioned before, to disclose these convictions of tax evasion, to publish the estimates for the tax gap and then to make sure that the Parliamentary Budget Officer can complete independent analysis of the tax gap for the benefit of all members in the House. Canada lags behind other countries that measure their tax gap and provide the public with more transparency and more information. The bill would certainly help legislators in this place and in the Senate make better laws to ensure that the CRA has the tools to carry out its core mandate effectively. I have to mention that, while Canadians may be frustrated with the Canada Revenue Agency’s performance over the last number of years, there are a number of fantastic people who work there and work very hard. I believe that they deserve a level of sympathy, because the government has been asking the CRA to do more and more activities that are outside of its core mandate. The government has asked the CRA to administer new benefit programs. It has asked the CRA to introduce and administer new tax reporting structures that are incredibly complicated. In one case, the CRA was to implement bare trust reporting rules that everyone knew were complicated. People spent hundreds of millions of dollars in total in complying with this new reporting requirement, only to have the government, a political actor, reverse the decision about submitting this paperwork at the last second, on the day the paperwork was due. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers incurred, in some cases, multiple-thousand-dollar tax bills to send information to the CRA, only to have the CRA say that it was too complicated and that it did not need that information right now. These are the operational decisions that the government has unfairly placed on the CRA, in my opinion. I believe that there are wonderful agents at the CRA who work hard and try to collect the money owing to government, but I believe, and I concur with my friend in the Senate, that Canadians deserve greater transparency on those who are convicted of tax evasion. I think we should make sure that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has access to the information it needs to conduct independent analysis of the tax gap. I would be remiss if I did not mention that, following my speech, I will be joined by the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, who is a wonderful mentor of mine and a person from whom I have learned a great deal in this place about how he carries himself, how to collaborate and how to make sure that one is standing up for their constituents and their principles with vigour, as well as with integrity. I look forward very much to his speech and thank him for his support on this bill and on my bill, Bill C-230, which, as I mentioned, I was pleased to see make it through this chamber.”

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“We can share tax data safely without showing who the taxpayers are. But if someone is convicted of tax evasion in court, their name should be made public. They do not deserve privacy.”

“Mr. Speaker, my friend from Winnipeg North quite rightly points out a potential concern with privacy. I would say two things. The first is that I think any data provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer could be appropriately anonymized such that it would be impossible to identify any taxpayer, whether that is a corporate or individual taxpayer. We should judiciously protect the privacy rights of Canadians. However, with respect to the information that would be required to be publicly disclosed by the government, it would be about individuals who have been convicted of tax evasion in Canada. Those individuals, if they have been convicted, have been convicted in a court of law and do not deserve any privacy rights, in my opinion.”

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“I want this bill to go to a committee for study. It helps us measure how much tax money companies owe the government versus how much is actually collected.”

“Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent question. I am certainly pleased to hear that the Bloc is open to supporting the bill’s being studied at committee. He put his finger on an interesting point with respect to companies that are avoiding taxes. I think that is partially what the bill is trying to get at, with respect to measuring the tax gap. That is to say, what does the government believe is owed to the government, i.e., what does the CRA believe is owed versus what they are able to collect? I do think that is a portion of tax avoidance. In my view, we could study this a bit more at committee, but I think that is one of the things this bill is trying to get at, with respect to companies that avoid paying the taxes they owe.”

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“Canada is bad at collecting unpaid taxes. I am asking my colleague if this bill will help us change our tax and criminal laws to hold tax evaders accountable.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to build on the two questions my hon. colleague was already asked, because in my opinion, when people are breaking the law or they are avoiding taxes, it is all about transparency and accountability. In particular, I want to ask him what he thinks the end result will be. Will this help and potentially enable additional changes to our tax laws and our Criminal Code? As he talked about in his speech, unfortunately, Canada has a bad track record of not collecting any of the money that has not been properly paid to the government coffers.”

“We need more openness and accountability from the tax agency. Sharing this information will help the agency focus on catching tax cheats and collecting the money people owe. It will also help us make better laws to catch tax evaders.”

“Mr. Speaker, my wonderful friend asked his question in English, although he does speak French. I just heard him in this chamber speaking French. He tried it out quite well. Maybe he was auditioning. I think he is right about two things: We need more transparency, and we need more accountability. If parliamentarians and the broader Canadian public have this information, we can help the CRA refocus its efforts on its core mandate, which is to collect the money that is owed and go after tax evaders. If we are lagging behind other countries in finding, prosecuting and convicting tax evaders, ensuring that we have transparency about that process will help us deliver better laws and maybe better tools to the CRA so that it can carry out its core mandate.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It makes the Canada Revenue Agency track unpaid taxes and report on people and companies convicted of tax evasion. Canada needs this to catch tax cheats and make sure everyone pays what they owe.”

“Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate on Bill S‑217. I am very pleased to see that the Bloc Québécois and the governing party are in agreement on this bill. Of course, we are the ones introducing it through the member for Simcoe North. This is not the first time that Bill S-217, an act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act with regard to reporting on unpaid income tax, has been before this House. Essentially, the purpose of this bill is to put more pressure on the CRA to track down the scoundrels who do not pay their taxes, especially those known as “white-collar criminals”, in other words, individuals or companies who refuse to pay taxes or who use loopholes and cook the books to avoid paying their taxes. We need to get to the bottom of things, and this bill does just that. Some may be surprised that this is the third time this bill has been introduced and debated in the House, even though it is a no-brainer. As my Bloc Québécois colleague said earlier, the first time was under a majority government; the Liberals rejected it. That is part of public debate. There was then a sequence of three elections with minority governments. That meant there was not enough time to do the work properly. As a parliamentarian, I find that unfortunate, but let us remember that, from December 2024 to mid-December 2024 and then to mid-September 2025, over a nine-month period, the House sat for only five weeks. This was because of the change in government, the new Prime Minister’s government, the elections and the summer recess. All of this prevented us from doing our parliamentary work. Now, we are doing it, and we are going to do it right. I will put on my glasses. I am going to do so often, because this whole subject is so technical that we need to get our facts straight. This bill has three objectives: to compile a list of all convictions for tax evasion, including international tax evasion; to require the CRA to include statistics on the tax gap in its annual reports every three years; and to require the minister to provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with data on the tax gap. These three elements gripped the entire world when the Panama Papers scandal came to light. I am sure everyone remembers about ten years ago, when a consortium of investigative journalists unearthed what came to be known as the “Panama Papers”. They had unravelled a web of tax havens. The documents confirmed that several countries, including Canada, were indeed home to the scoundrels I mentioned earlier, whether companies or individuals. In total, 900 of them had flouted every possible law, and then some, to evade taxes. Some countries have taken the bull by the horns and achieved concrete results. In Australia, $44 million was recovered, compared with $87 million in Germany, $175 million in Spain and $25 million in Iceland. Canada, for its part, has recovered nothing. That is pretty weak. That is precisely why this bill must be passed. The CRA and anyone who cares about ensuring that everyone pays their fair share must be treated fairly. Being treated fairly means having to pay, and if a company does not pay, it should be seen as a bad guy who does not pay taxes. That is why it is important to do the right thing. It is also important to note that there are key points in each of the three stages. For example, earlier we talked about the shortfall. I will not deny that certain phrases sometimes sound better in French than in English. One thing, however, can be expressed equally in both languages. I was talking earlier about the minority government, which has since become a majority government because of the floor crossers. The term “floor crossers” is funny, is it not? I think “floor crossers” sounds just as good in French, for that it what they are. Getting back to the shortfall, some countries have handled that well, namely the United States, Great Britain, Turkey and Sweden. It is time for Canada to do the right thing so that everyone who is supposed to pay can do so properly. That is why it is essential that this bill pass. Allow me to recognize the perseverance of Senator Percy Downe who, for years, did the necessary work to push for this critical cause. It is thanks to him that we can debate it today. I also want to thank my colleague from Simcoe North for this. I want to note that my colleague served, in a different era, in better times for Canada, in Prime Minister Harper’s government, in various ministers’ offices, and he distinguished himself in a most inspiring way. I would like to think that, in a few years, three years at most, Canadians will honour us with their trust and the member for Simcoe North would do a great service to the Canadian government in cabinet. I am saying that he would make a good minister. Let us get back to the matter at hand. Yes, the Canada Revenue Agency absolutely must do its job. It is clear that these are not great times for the CRA. Just a few months ago, the Auditor General tabled a scathing report about poor management at the CRA. The report notes that there was a complete lack of leadership, with terrible results for all Canadians. Why would I say that? One reason is that people were waiting for ages when they called for information. Worse still, when information was provided, it was not always correct. Just imagine: People who cannot afford to pay a tax expert or an accountant to prepare their tax return for them pick up the phone, call CRA, talk to someone and get the wrong information one in five times. A few months later, CRA writes to let them know they made a mistake and owe $150, which they have to pay back right away because interest charges will keep adding up. That is what happened after 10 years of Liberal leadership at the Canada Revenue Agency. I would like to reiterate what the member for Simcoe North said to my government colleague earlier. He said that CRA employees should not be blamed for not being properly trained. Nor should the CRA itself be blamed for being badly mismanaged in recent years. Let us not forget that Prime Minister Trudeau put someone in charge for seven years who did not necessarily have sufficient experience in this field to provide strong leadership. I would like to commend and thank the current Prime Minister for firing this person from cabinet. I would also like to commend and thank the people of the Gaspé region for firing her from the House of Commons. Obviously, we would have preferred to see our candidate, Jean‑Pierre Pigeon, elected in that riding. The people decided otherwise. That said, I have absolutely nothing against the current member from the Gaspé region, a former fellow journalist who truly stands out, and that is a good thing for Canadian democracy. This bill needs to move forward. We need to move forward to keep Canada in the loop when it comes to targeting and tracking down white collar criminals who do not pay their full taxes. We need to flush out these characters who, unfortunately, do not have the honour and dignity of paying what they owe and who invest tens of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to avoid paying what they owe the Canadian government. Canada needs this legislation to flush out criminals, be more transparent and get access to all the necessary information. That is why we obviously hope that the entire House will vote in favour of this bill.”

“I want the House to pass this bill. It makes the tax agency publish the names of people convicted of tax evasion. It also forces the agency to track and share data on unpaid taxes, which can help lower taxes for everyone.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill S-217, which was introduced by my friend and colleague in the other place Senator Percy Downe. I thank him for his perseverance in pushing this issue forward. I believe this is the third time the bill was introduced and adopted in the other place and the third time the bill has been sent to the House for consideration. I know Senator Downe has put a lot of work into this. To be clear, we support this bill. It would, broadly, do three things. First, it would have the CRA publish a list of people who are criminally convicted for tax evasion, which I think is an important part of public disclosure and transparency. Second, it would require the CRA to estimate the tax gap between taxes owed and taxes collected. Third, it would require the CRA to provide data to the Parliamentary Budget Officer so that the Parliamentary Budget Officer can independently assess the tax gap between taxes owed and taxes collected. Those are, I think, three very good goals of the bill. I would encourage my colleagues to support this legislation. It is important to maintain the integrity of our income tax system. This will give the institutions of state the tools they need to do that so that we can ensure lower taxes for everyone, because when we close the tax gap and reduce tax evasion, taxes can go down. I look forward to the further debate and vote on this bill.”