Mr. Speaker, it is too bad that I only have 10 minutes, but I will resume my speech when this bill is at third reading. We are at report stage now, and I have 10 minutes to summarize my thoughts on this budget bill and on the budget as a whole.
I listened to a number of speeches tonight. Unfortunately, it seemed obvious that many of my Conservative colleagues had not even read the bill. They were asked questions about very specific parts of the bill and they gave us the runaround.
We ask these questions to try to illustrate, once again, that we have a budget bill that is more than 380 pages long and that amends, eliminates or adds some 60 acts in a single bill. At third reading, we will ultimately have to decide, with a single vote, whether we agree with a bill that contains a wide variety of measures.
Let us take a look at that variety. This bill contains clauses that will increase the number of federal judges in Alberta and Quebec courts. The bill amends the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency Act and the Museums Act, it makes changes to demutualization, makes changes related to the Champlain Bridge and makes changes related to measures for veterans, in response to a Supreme court ruling. All that in just one bill. Many of these elements should have been studied separately.
During his speech, my colleague from Victoria said that the most complex aspect of the bill was probably the one pertaining to the House ratifying an intergovernmental agreement with the United States. This is an agreement with the United States, which wants to tax Americans who live in Canada. We are not talking about citizenship. This measure contains elements that could well jeopardize the privacy of our citizens.
To add to what my colleague from Victoria said in his eloquent speech, this will obviously affect Canadians who have dual citizenship, Canadians who have not been to the United States in 20, 25 or 30 years, who no longer consider themselves to be American and who have always paid their taxes in Canada. In the end, they may be forced to pay back-taxes to the United States for the entire period during which they lived full time in Canada.
What is more, their own banks could send their banking information to the Canada Revenue Agency, which will act as an intermediary and relay that information to the American revenue agency, the IRS. These elements are extremely complex. Our constituents talk to us about them regularly, and I am certain that the constituents of Conservative members, the government members, talk to them about it too. These are major concerns. I would like to add that, after the testimony we heard before the Standing Committee on Finance, it is clear that this provision will be challenged in court. Did the government listen to the comments and criticisms about these aspects of the bill? No, it did not. It is going ahead with them.
There is another aspect of this agreement that is very relevant to my riding. Many Canadians have never been American, but they live near the border. That is the case in my riding, which shares a border with Maine. Many people in Témiscouata who do not live close to a Canadian hospital gave birth to their babies in American hospitals. They then returned to Canada. There was a time when that happened quite frequently. Because these individuals were technically born in the United States, they could be considered American, have their file referred to the IRS and eventually be forced to pay taxes in the United States, a country that they have never lived in.
I am not the only one. One of my Conservative colleagues on the Standing Committee on Finance, the member for Tobique—Mactaquac, is in the same situation because his riding also shares a border with Maine. These are extremely complex situations that should have been carefully examined in a separate bill. The government refused to do that.
Now, the government is saying that we have had plenty of time to examine this bill in the House and in the Standing Committee on Finance. This bill is 380 pages long and it amends 60 laws. We did not even have the opportunity to call witnesses to speak about certain parts of the bill because we did not have enough time.
The NDP does its homework. We tried, within the framework imposed on us by the government, to bring in witnesses to talk about as many issues as possible and cover as much material as possible. Despite those efforts, we were not able to properly examine some important parts of the bill.
This is not the first time this has happened. This is the fourth omnibus bill I have seen since I became deputy finance critic. The government would have us believe that it respects the opinion of the House and particularly the opinions of opposition members. We often provide constructive criticism because the opposition's role is not just to oppose, but to point out weaknesses in the bills that the government introduces. One would think that we would be right about something every so often.
After examining four omnibus bills in the Standing Committee on Finance, we still have not managed to get a single amendment passed. It was not until we examined this budget bill that we finally managed to get an amendment through, and even then a Conservative subamendment had to be made to it.
This government is not doing its duty when it comes to the parliamentary work we are responsible for doing as representatives of our ridings, our own little corners of Canada. The government is not demonstrating good governance and is not evaluating every aspect of its bills on the basis of merit. Bill C-31 and what is happening at the Standing Committee on Finance is not an isolated case. It is the general rule.
The Standing Committee on Finance addressed other specific and complex aspects of the bill, and I know that members of the Standing Committee on Transport did the same, just as quickly. The matter of the intergovernmental agreement between Canada and the United States on taxation is complex, but other aspects of the bill are also worth examining.
The matter of the Champlain Bridge, which I just spoke about with one of my Conservative colleagues, is one example. The Conservatives want to impose a toll on the new Champlain Bridge without having conducted appropriate studies on the impact that this would have on access to Montreal or on the other points of entry, such as the Victoria Bridge, the Jacques-Cartier Bridge and the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge–Tunnel. How will these points of entry be affected?
The Champlain Bridge is a major gateway not only for Montreal, but also for Quebec. What would a member from Toronto think if the government decided to patch up the Don Valley Parkway and impose a toll? What impact would that have on Toronto's economy? That is the same situation Montreal is facing.
Once again, the government is not listening, even though it was unable to provide a single witness who supported its proposed toll. The government is not being responsible; it should be working for the common good. I would like to talk about so many elements, but my time is limited. I will talk about demutualization, another complex issue.
Last year there was a case of demutualization, and the Standing Committee on Finance studied this issue. We know about mutual insurance companies in general. However, some of these companies want to demutualize and become share capital companies. One case was reported to the committee at the time.
The mutual company in question had 943 mutual policyholders or subscribers. However, these 943 policyholders were not the only ones who were insured by the mutual company. There were one million insured people. The 943 policyholders in question saw a good opportunity: if the mutual company was privatized and transformed into a share capital company, it could eventually be sold, amalgamated and bought by another company. They would make a tidy profit because the company's capital was assessed at more than $1.3 billion. Thus, every one of the mutual policyholders could make up to $1.3 million. That was clearly an incentive to demutualize, to the detriment of those who had an insurance policy. We tried to clarify this complex situation.
I want to talk about so many other aspects of the bill, including the issue of labour-sponsored funds and the elimination of the tax credit that the government is still planning, which will have adverse effects on job creation. In fact, this could lead to job losses in Quebec, and the government continues to turn a deaf ear.
I have no lessons to learn from this government when it comes to job creation. They are all talk and no action. That is why I will have no problem voting in favour of our amendments and against Bill C-31.