Adam Chambers

In response to a question from Jean-Denis Garon

“I want the Prime Minister to come to the finance committee to answer questions. He broke his fiscal promise and ran up the debt, and he does not come to question period every day. He should want to answer for his choices.”

“Mr. Speaker, I have shared many good conversations about economics with my colleague. I find him to be incredibly smart, and his question is quite correct. The Prime Minister does not need to show up to question period every day, and he does not, which is maybe why we are asking that he might show up to a committee to answer some questions about this. While I have a lot of respect for the finance minister, and I hold him in very high regard as a parliamentarian, this fiscal promise to Canadians was not the finance minister’s promise. This was the Prime Minister’s promise. It is the Prime Minister’s choice to blow through the fiscal anchor. It is the Prime Minister’s choice to put our debt on a bad track. Frankly, the Prime Minister should want to answer questions.”

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In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“Canada's finances are getting worse under the Prime Minister, not better. Nearly 14 cents of every tax dollar now goes just to pay interest on the national debt, up from 7.5 cents before he took office. Paying interest on the debt is the government's fastest-growing cost. The Prime Minister is putting our country at risk by borrowing record amounts of money year after year.”

“Mr. Speaker, I was unaware that the member was such a proponent of supply-side economics. The truth is that the fiscal position of this country is being eroded. It is not getting better under the Prime Minister, even though he made that commitment to Canadians, when we are going to spend nearly 14¢ out of every tax dollar brought in on interest on the debt. Interest on the debt is the fastest-growing expense of the government. We used to spend only 10¢ on the dollar, and before Prime Minister Trudeau came in, we spent only about 7.5¢ of every dollar on interest on the debt. This is going in the wrong direction, and I am quite shocked. I am surprised that the two-time central banker and much-lauded Goldman Sachs wunderkind has put Canada’s fiscal health at risk by borrowing record amounts of money year after year and continuing to stay on this course.”

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“The Prime Minister promised to stick to a spending limit, and he broke that promise in less than a year. The government took in more money, but it chose to spend even more. Soon, 14 cents of every dollar the government collects will go toward paying interest on the debt, leaving less for public services and tax relief. The Prime Minister needs to answer to Canadians for breaking his word.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the constituents and residents of Simcoe North to talk about some important issues facing the economy and the importance of promises. What is a promise if one has no intention of keeping their word? When a politician makes a promise, some people immediately think the politician has no intention of keeping their word. I think many politicians make promises they intend to keep. Should we not hold politicians accountable for the promises they make to Canadians, and for promises on subjects that go directly to the underlying credibility of the politician? What do I mean? The Prime Minister was elected, I think in part, on a record or a résumé that many Canadians felt was credible, especially in the areas of budgetary economics or fiscal discipline. The Prime Minister introduced a new fiscal anchor, which is really a fancy term for a fiscal target. It has only been one year since that target has been in place, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently indicated that the Prime Minister will blow through his own self-imposed fiscal target. I mean, this is barely a year since that target has been in place, and the Prime Minister has chosen, and I say “chosen” because it is a deliberate choice, to blow through the anchor. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also indicates that revenues are up and that if the government had not increased its spending, it could have met its own fiscal anchor or fiscal target. This is a deliberate choice by the Prime Minister to break a promise that he made to Canadians less than one year ago. Paul Martin, when he was finance minister, met every single deficit reduction target that was imposed. He met every single fiscal anchor that was imposed. There has not been a Liberal finance minister in 10 years who has met their own self-imposed fiscal targets. At the very first opportunity that the new Prime Minister and the new finance minister had to keep their fiscal promise to Canadians, they chose to break it. How is it possible that the fiscal genius who is the Prime Minister, as some people will say, is breaking a fiscal promise? He is supposed to be the one who was fiscally restrained and cared about the finances of the nation, yet he is showing himself to be about as reliable, or perhaps I should say as unreliable, as Prime Minister Trudeau in this department. This is an example of the Prime Minister undermining his own credibility on the fiscal finances of the nation by choice, less than a year after he made the promise. David Dodge, in 2023, wrote, “We have argued in the past that an interest cost/revenue ratio above 10% and a federal debt/GDP ratio that is not declining steadily from close to...where it currently stands signal risks of unsustainability.” He is talking about unsustainability of fiscal finances. I had a chance to ask Mr. Dodge, former central bank governor, about this point, and he responded: If you’re spending 10¢ out of every tax dollar that you collect on servicing past debts, that obviously leaves you with less to spend on providing current goods and services. The problem that we collectively face now and going forward is that we’re going to have growth of the economy or growth of the base revenues of government that will be equal to or perhaps even less than the interest rates. The burden of past debt will increase year after year rather than being eroded. That was in 2023. At that point in time, we were just about to approach spending 10¢ of every dollar of government revenue on interest on the debt. In just a few years, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects, Canada will spend nearly 14¢ of every dollar it receives on interest on the debt. In fact, interest on the debt is the fastest-growing expense line item in the budget. It is growing faster than health care spending increases and faster than any other expenditure. I am asking myself how it is possible that the Prime Minister, who was elected in part because of his financial credentials, who is a two-time central banker, who is a very well-known economist, who was chair of the Financial Stability Board, who was a Goldman Sachs banker, who, to many people’s applauding, was successful as chair of Brookfield and who has fiscal credentials, is making a deliberate choice to break a promise he made to Canadians. He did not just make the promise to Canada in general. He made a promise to our young people that they would be able to inherit a government and fiscal finances that were not going to be eroded. He said he would spend less to invest more, yet we find out that the government is going to spend nearly 14¢ of every dollar paying interest on the debt. Those obligations will be passed to future generations, and they will have no choice but to meet those obligations. This means less money for social programs, less money to spend on the things Canadians want and a heck of a lot less money to provide significant tax relief to Canadians. In the face of all of this, the Prime Minister’s fiscal plan is actually to borrow record amounts of money in the bond markets. Next year, we will have to borrow almost $600 billion. The year after that, it will be $563 billion, and that is before the new borrowing we are going to see in the budget next week. The government believed interest rates were going to go down last year and into this year, but they have gone up. What is going to happen to debt service costs then? This is why the deficit target is even worse this year than it was last year. The deficit is at least $3 billion a year higher this year and every year going out. If there is continued trouble, or shocks in the bond markets, our debt service costs are going to increase substantially, and that 14¢ might become 15¢ or 16¢. Members might think I am making something up, but in the late 1970s, debt service costs were, I think, around 15¢. They then went up to 30¢. In fact, I think they peaked at 36¢. We are going in the wrong direction. This was a primary promise the Prime Minister made to the House, to Canadians and to the next generation, and he is breaking that promise. He should feel the need to answer not just to the House but to all Canadians.”

“The budget officer warned that the Prime Minister will not meet his own spending targets. He is breaking his promises. Did the Prime Minister personally approve running up the deficit?”

“Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has warned Canadians that the new finance minister and Prime Minister will not even meet their own fiscal targets and anchors. The Prime Minister, that is, refuses to meet the standards he has imposed on himself and promised. If the Prime Minister is continuing to break these promises, they are about as unreliable as previous prime minister Justin Trudeau’s fiscal promises. Will the Prime Minister confirm that he himself approved using the credit card to run up the deficit?”

In response to a question from Sébastien Lemire

“Our economy only helps people who are already rich. Everyone else is struggling to pay for food and fuel. It seems the only people doing well are close friends of the Prime Minister.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. My friend in the Bloc has great taste in colours of ties and colours of suits, today for sure. The member raises an important distinction. There is something called a K-shaped recovery in the economy. That is, those who have assets and wealth are actually doing quite well, like those who are invested in Brookfield, and those who do not have assets and wealth are struggling. They struggle with higher costs and higher food prices and fuel prices. This is really what is happening in the economy. There are those who are doing well and those who are not doing so well. It just so happens that everyone who seems to be doing well knows the Prime Minister very well.”

In response to a question from Grant Jackson

“The government was too slow to admit that inflation and the slowing economy are real problems. They do not want to admit these problems because they have been in power for 11 years and should have fixed them.”

“Mr. Speaker, that was a wonderful question from a great colleague and contributor in this chamber. This is a movie we have seen before. The government was slow and late to acknowledge that inflation was a problem. It is slow and late to the party on the economic decline and stagnation of this country. Why? It is because if the Liberals acknowledge there is a problem, because they have been in power for 11 years, well, gosh, maybe they could have done something about it.”

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“Our economy is struggling, and the Prime Minister has done nothing to fix it. He needs to lower taxes, cut red tape, and bring in more competition for our banks and airlines. Instead, he is borrowing record amounts of money and doubling our deficit. This debt puts our country at huge financial risk, and the interest payments will soon take money away from the programs Canadians need.”

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having the opportunity to rise today to speak to this very sobering issue. I will be splitting my time with the wonderful new member from Long Range Mountains, who is a fantastic member in this place and brings a lot of expertise. I am happy to share my time with her. Also, I want to say hi to Susan, who might be watching at home, who typically watches many of these speeches. I thank and appreciate her for all the support and the friends at Cornerstone. We are talking about a recession. We might be down by 0.1% or up by 0.1%, but the truth is that the economy is not doing very well, regardless of whether the government suggests that we are not in a recession or that, as some people like to say, it is just a technical recession. In fact, according to Sean Speer, editor-at-large at The Hub, all of this is a bit of silly semantics: “The real questions are: how much does the economy suck, how long has it sucked, why does it suck, and what are the different ideas to stop it from sucking.” We have a productivity crisis in this country, and everybody knows it. The Prime Minister has even acknowledged it. I think the Prime Minister was elected in part because of his résumé, but it appears, over a year into his term, that his economic agenda and plan are not working. It is even a bit hard to determine what his economic plan and agenda are. If it is to attack productivity, one cannot connect very many of his economic announcements to actually making the big reforms and changes we need to the economy in this country to get it going. Of course, President Trump’s tariffs weigh on our economy, but we saw serious economic trouble before anyone had heard of President Trump. The Bank of Canada has called it a productivity emergency. Senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers declared it “an emergency”, a “time to break the glass”. If it is true that we are in this economic crisis of productivity, the Prime Minister’s agenda is not addressing it. He is saying we have moved at speeds faster than ever before, but we have not seen fundamental reforms. There has been no serious competition reform, tax reform or regulatory reform. In fact, when it comes to those three items, we could classify the Prime Minister not as a bold actor but as one who supports the status quo. He is the status quo man. He is not willing to take on the banks, the airlines, the telecoms or the other oligopolies that we need to take on to enhance the productivity of our country. He must move faster. On competition, we should radically attack the profit pools of our financial institutions, in particular the banks, by introducing more competition to deliver lower prices to Canadians. If we want to send a message to the United States, let us do it through CANZUK. If British Airways wants to fly a plane between Toronto and Vancouver or Toronto and Halifax, why do we not let them and invite any airline in the CANZUK countries to do so? On taxes, we should immediately move to reduce capital gains on those businesses and individuals who reinvest in Canada and in Canadian companies. We need a tax reform package to lower taxes, business and personal, and significantly reduce complexity. On regulation, we need service standards for permitting. We need to pre-approve projects in areas of the country, which means they can be done faster. We should be working more closely with indigenous leaders across the country to identify and pre-approve projects, to de-risk them, in order to free up and attract private capital. If the Prime Minister was serious about building a pipeline, he would have already started his consultations with indigenous groups. We risk allowing this valuable time to go by without making the difficult decisions. Instead, we get announcements, speeches and bureaucracies, such as the Major Projects Office, which, by the way, in and of itself is an admission that the regulatory process does not work. We have the build Canada office, and then the sovereign wealth fund, which will be funded, of course, with debt. Now I would like to turn, for the reminder of my comments, to a specific risk that I think is growing and that the government should be paying more attention to. The Prime Minister’s fiscal plan for this country is putting us at serious risk. By doubling the size of the deficits of PM Trudeau, the Prime Minister is threatening the fiscal stability of our country. If we get into economic challenges around the world, we will be less able to deal with them. We are borrowing record amounts of debt this year and in the next two years. This year we will borrow $510 billion in the market, then we have to borrow $594 billion in the market, and in 2027-28, we have to borrow $563 billion. We borrow mostly on the short end of the curve, so what happens is that this debt has to be rolled over every two or three years. That is like signing up for only a one- or two-year mortgage on a house. One would have to go to the bank, and guess what happens. Their interest rate gets reset every single time. When 40% of the government’s debt is purchased by non-bank financial actors, which are hedge funds and financial speculators, we are at serious risk if those hedge funds and purchasers cannot continue to purchase. In the face of all of this, the Prime Minister’s fiscal plan is to borrow more money, record amounts of money. If there is an economic event, a sovereign debt crisis or a war, something that happens totally outside of Canada, our debt service costs are going to explode. They are already going to be $80 billion in just a few years, and that is $80 billion that could not go to more productive uses. That $80 billion is a projection based on interest rates staying the same or going down. What if interest rates go up? The Prime Minister, who is a two-time central banker and chair of the Financial Stability Board, should know better than to increase the size of deficits and debt in this country and put us further at risk, and I am not the only one who thinks so. The Bank of Canada is warning that we will have potential problems. It is saying that higher stock market valuations, higher corporate debt and higher amounts of money borrowed by hedge funds to buy sovereign debt are vulnerabilities. “This has made it more likely that a new shock or a combination of shocks could cause several vulnerabilities to crystallize at once,” said the senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers. The Bank of Canada is warning the government that there could be economic instability, and we have a risk of who funds our government in purchasing our debt. That will put our AAA credit rating at risk. We can kiss the fiscal anchor goodbye. In fact, already the Parliamentary Budget Officer is saying that the government has a less than 1% chance of even keeping that anchor. The Prime Minister’s decisions are completely imprudent when it comes to fiscal responsibility, and it will result, and may result, in more pain later. Now, one of these events might not happen, but no one predicted the financial crisis in 2007 and 2008, or very few people did. However, it might happen, and with the fact that it might happen, and that the risks are growing, this Prime Minister’s decision to increase the size of the debt and the deficits can be called nothing short of reckless, because it will imperil the government’s ability to pay for social programs. The bankers and the bondholders get paid first, and our social programs will come second. As I said, one would think that the Prime Minister would be more attuned to some of these global risks and would be taking a much more fiscally responsible path with the government’s spending. As I might not get a chance to welcome everyone to Midland this weekend, it is Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival. Please come. I am super happy to plug that big event in my riding this weekend. I am also more than happy to answer any questions from any member in the House about my remarks.”

In response to a question from Yves Perron

“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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In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“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 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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In response to a question from Alexis Deschênes

“This bill will make large canceled debts public. This lets Canadians see how their tax money is handled. It also helps us collect money owed by corporations and make laws to stop them from skipping out on taxes.”

“Mr. Speaker, I believe that the member, as a first-term MP, is doing a wonderful job in his role and in bringing his expertise here. Yes, if there are large writeoffs in the future that exceed the threshold, that information will become public, which then means parliamentarians and the public get more information about how their tax dollars are being used or not collected. It means we can then refocus the resources at the agency to ensure that we recover the money from corporations that is owed, or pass laws to make it more difficult for corporations to skip out on their tax bill. I would also like to mention at this time that the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue was a wonderful addition to our work on committee and helped this bill get here.”

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In response to a question from Pat Kelly

“The tax agency used to tell us the single biggest debt it forgave each year. Then it stopped, even though the privacy laws did not change. That is why we need this bill to make the government share that information again.”

“Mr. Speaker, indeed, the wonderful member for Calgary Crowfoot did identify that. At one point, the Canada Revenue Agency used to disclose what the single largest writeoff was in a particular fiscal year. That practice, all of a sudden, changed. However, from my understanding, the Income Tax Act privacy rules did not change and the Privacy Act rules did not change, so it did not make much sense that the government and the Canada Revenue Agency would provide less information to the public and to this chamber than they did previously. That really was a significant driving factor in why this bill is here before the House tonight.”

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