Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As you mentioned, Liberal amendment LIB-2 is the same as NDP amendment NDP-6. Because this amendment is being moved by the NDP, I won't be moving Liberal amendment LIB-2, but I will be making some remarks.
I want to thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to group all my remarks for the next three clauses. I will put all my remarks on the record now, and I will not be making extensive remarks for the next three clauses.
This legislation regarding the Conservative government's FATCA deal with the United States should not be part of an omnibus budget bill that is being rushed through Parliament in the last few weeks of our sitting in June. This deal will affect a lot of people, approximately a million or so deemed Americans living in Canada. Many of them are Canadian citizens. There are examples of people who are accidentally Americans; for example, Canadians from Canadian border towns who were born in a U.S. hospital because that was the closest hospital. I know a priest from New Brunswick who is in exactly that situation. He lived right on the border in New Brunswick. Then there are parents who mistakenly thought they lost their U.S. citizenship upon becoming a Canadian citizen. Their child, who was born in Canada, has never been to the United States, but finds out they have U.S. citizenship and are subject to the obligations under the legislation that we're debating today.
There hasn't been an information campaign from the government to let Canadians know how the Conservatives' FATCA deal with the United States will affect them. Perhaps that should have been done even before this legislation was considered so that we parliamentarians, as their representatives, could hear from them after they had been properly informed. That's the way accountability of the government to Parliament, to the Canadian people through Parliament, should work. I think informing Canadians first is very important.
What limited information is out there has sometimes been misleading. For example, the government has boasted that registered accounts such as RESPs and RDSPs are not reportable. In other words, the CRA will not be reporting them to the United States. But even though Canadian banks won't report those accounts, Canadians who have U.S. citizenship will still have to fill out forms to report those accounts to the IRS in the United States if the total aggregate value of all accounts exceeds $10,000. It's unfortunate that wasn't dealt with in the negotiations leading to the IGA. If these Canadians don't report their accounts to the IRS, they face U.S. penalties of up to $100,000, or 50% of the balance of the account, whichever is greater, per violation.
Under this deal, Mr. Chair, the CRA will share personal tax information on Canadians with the IRS, but our officials, our government, have been unable to tell us and the Canadian people on a granular level exactly what information will be shared. We know that under this deal the CRA will punish Canadians who don't provide the Canadian government with their U.S. tax identification number. In most cases, it will be the social security number in the U.S. When Canadians do provide this information to the CRA, the CRA will then hand it over to the IRS.
The CRA already collects information on Canadians' income, of course—it's part of filing taxes—and all our information about all our registered accounts, but we don't know in detail how much of this information the CRA will then pass on to the IRS.
The Conservative government claims that the government will not use this information to help the IRS go after U.S. taxes on Canadian assets and Canadian income earned by Canadians. However, the government is introducing a $100 penalty for Canadians who don't provide their U.S. tax identification number to the CRA, but the CRA has no use for a U.S. tax identification number, except to pass that number over to the U.S. government under the IGA.
It's clear, unfortunately, that our Conservative government has signed a deal with the United States that has the Canadian government doing work for the U.S. government, namely, collecting information for the IRS. Our officials have been unable to give Canadians granular details on how this deal will financially impact Canadian citizens, so they've been unable to give a full response to their representatives here in Parliament.
There's another example. We know that RESPs, the registered education savings plans, and the RDSPs, will be subject to U.S. taxes under this deal, but we don't know how much Canadians will have to pay in U.S. taxes on these accounts. One example where that's a problem is that if these accounts are being used by Canadians to help pay for a child's education or help disabled Canadians avoid poverty. These accounts were not created to help the U.S. Treasury pay down its debts across the border.
We know that Canadian spouses of so-called U.S. persons in Canada will also be affected if they have joint accounts and that these joint accounts will be subject to U.S. taxation, but Canadian officials haven't been able to tell us if the entire account would be subject to U.S. taxation or just a portion of it.
There's a lot about this deal that will be put into practice that we don't know.
Parliament's study of the Conservatives' FATCA deal has been rushed. We haven't been afforded the time or the resources to write proper oversight, listen to constituents who are informed, and fulfill our responsibility to them. If this section of the bill passes, we will have passed an agreement into law without properly understanding how it will work and how it will affect Canadians. That is why the Liberal Party opposes part 5 of this bill.
I will wait until we get to the point of the agenda where we reach the other Liberal amendments, and at that time I'll simply move those amendments.
