House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 50% of the vote.
Carbon Pricing September 29th, 2023
Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois said it wanted to drastically increase the carbon tax. The Liberals got their wish. A second carbon tax now applies in Quebec. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, it will cost 17¢ more per litre. This Bloc-Liberal alliance is always looking for ways to take more money from Quebeckers' pockets. It is just ridiculous.
Will the Prime Minister put an end to these inflationary taxes?
Carbon Pricing September 29th, 2023
Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is scrambling to convince Quebeckers that the carbon tax will have no impact on Quebec. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything that is transported from one province to another and ends up in our shops costs more because of this tax. Everything, including voting for the Bloc, costs more. After eight years of this government, many Quebeckers are being squeezed.
Will the Prime Minister finally call off this costly Bloc-Liberal tax?
Carbon Tax September 20th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this government, our country is broken. Inflation is already hurting families, and food prices are expected to rise by 34% over the next two years. Repeated interest rate hikes have doubled mortgage payments. One in two Canadians lives paycheque to paycheque.
What is the government's response? It is adamant about going ahead with its plan to increase the carbon tax.
Worse still, the Bloc members are blindly supporting it. They say they want to drastically increase the carbon tax. What does “drastic” mean? It means “extreme”, “radical”. That is what the Bloc-Liberal coalition wants: to make everything drastically, radically more expensive. Could a government be more out of touch? I think not. I want all families in Quebec and Canada to know that a vote for the Bloc Québécois in the next election will cost them dearly.
I want everyone to remember this: A Conservative government will bring back common sense by abolishing the Bloc-Liberal tax and bringing home lower prices.
Corrections and Conditional Release Act September 18th, 2023
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-351, An Act to amend the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (maximum security offenders).
Madam Speaker, I am proud to rise in the House today to introduce a private member's bill.
Canadians were shocked to learn that Paul Bernardo, a dangerous criminal, had been transferred from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security prison. This bill amends the Corrections and Conditional Release Act to require that inmates who have been found to be dangerous offenders or convicted of more than one first-degree murder be assigned a security classification of maximum and confined in a maximum security penitentiary or area in a penitentiary.
A similar bill was introduced in the spring by my colleague from Niagara Falls, whom I would like to thank for his work. My bill includes a coming into force provision that, once the bill is passed, will speed up the process and ensure that such a situation never happens again. I would also like to thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles for his contribution and hard work in support of a justice system that puts victims first. I look forward to discussing this further at second reading.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Carbon Pricing June 20th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, for eight years, the carbon tax has had an impact across the country, even in Quebec, despite what the minister and the Prime Minister are saying.
As if that were not enough, the government will be imposing a second carbon tax as of July 1. Quebec families will be paying an average of $436 a year for this new measure they really do not need.
Since we know that families are already stretched to the limit and struggling to get by, will this Prime Minister show some common sense and cancel this new tax?
Canada Business Corporations Act June 19th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent question.
To move society forward, we must move bills forward, be it at the federal or provincial level. I realize that the registries are all harmonized at 25%. We are fully aware of that, but, in moving amendments like the one meant to lower the ownership threshold to 10%, we have made people think, not only in the House, but also at the provincial level.
In doing so, we could perhaps improve the registries to ensure that all the information could be collected more effectively, both at the provincial and federal levels, so as to eliminate, once and for all, money laundering, tax evasion, and related crimes.
The tighter the measures across Canada, the greater the chance of limiting the damage. I am an entrepreneur and I regularly consult the Quebec registry. I will be consulting it again soon, because my daughter will be taking over for my associate in my company. I will be required to have a notary make the change at the IGIF, the institute that records all the information in a registry. We will record my company's new shareholder, my daughter. Actually, it will just be my daughter and me. That is very important. We each hold 50% of the companies' shares, but there could have been several shareholders, and the threshold could have been 10% instead of 25%.
In our case, it does not matter, because we are not fraudsters. I remember that my colleague said that there are companies that own multiple companies. It becomes a sort of puzzle. It would have been more obvious to have a 10% threshold rather than a 25% threshold.
Canada Business Corporations Act June 19th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, by interoperability we understand the connections and interplay between the provincial laws and the federal law that enable them to work together. It is imperative and fundamental that these laws can work together so that the work done upstream or downstream—whether at the federal or provincial level—can be constructive and effective, particularly against money laundering.
I think my colleague is right, and I thank him for that. I must say publicly that my colleague is a very fine individual who does great work on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology and who always makes an effort. As he said earlier, we do not always agree. However, in general, I think his arguments are geared towards the common good of Quebec and Canadian society as a whole. That is what we are arguing for as well. To answer his question, I think it goes without saying. Everyone should realize that this is really something that should be interoperable.
Canada Business Corporations Act June 19th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues, and I want to take a moment congratulate all of the young folks. In fact, everyone is taking the opportunity to thank everyone else because of the short time we have left in the House of Commons. I would like to take a minute to thank and congratulate all of the young people who found a summer job in all of the ridings, mine in particular. These young people are contributing to the regional economy of our communities and embracing work. As I see it, work is an extremely important value to instill in young people to help them rise to the challenges of the future and gain experience through summer employment.
I am very pleased to rise in the House this evening to speak to Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. This bill is one phase of the government's plan to create a national registry of individuals with significant control over corporations in Canada pursuant to the Canada Business Corporations Act, or CBCA. Of course, we are talking about federally regulated companies.
The purpose of this bill is to require Corporations Canada to make public some of the information collected under the 2022 amendments to the CBCA. The bill also introduces whistle-blower protections, introduces exemptions for certain individuals, adds new offences and gives Corporations Canada additional powers with respect to inquiries, data validation and information sharing. For one thing, these powers allow Corporations Canada to share information with provincial authorities. We know that Quebec already has a registry. Since I am an entrepreneur myself, my name is on this registry, as are the names of my company's shareholders. I think it is important for the public to have access to this information.
According to what the government is saying, this bill basically seeks to protect Canadians from money laundering and terrorist financing, deter tax evasion and tax avoidance, and make sure Canada is an attractive place to conduct business. I completely agree up to that point. It is a worthwhile initiative. Money laundering and terrorist financing do a lot of harm.
Unfortunately, Canada has a poor record when it comes to fighting these modern scourges. Canada is known as an easy target for criminal groups and as an epicentre of money laundering and tax evasion. According to a 2020 investigative report published by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada on money laundering and fraud in Canada, the estimated extent of money laundered in Canada is between $45 billion and $113 billion. That is a huge amount of money, and it is good that the government is doing something about that.
The Conservative Party has agreed to vote in favour of Bill C‑42, but not because it is perfect, far from it. The review process in committee was rushed. There were only two meetings. I am a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, and I would say that everything happened quick as a flash, leaving members and stakeholders little time to develop and debate amendments to improve this bill. We also proposed amendments that were unfortunately rejected, and that is what I want to focus on.
The first amendment we proposed that was rejected had to do with share acquisition thresholds. We proposed: “(a) any number of shares that carry 10% or more of the voting rights attached to all of the corporation's outstanding voting shares; or (b) any number of shares that is equal to 10% or more of all of the corporation's outstanding shares measured by fair market value.”
This amendment would have added a new clause to the bill, amending the parts of the CBCA that define significant control to lower the threshold from 25% to 10%. We know that there are several categories of shares in a business. In this case, we are talking about voting shares, those with decision-making authority.
James Cohen, the executive director of Transparency International, made the following comment regarding our proposal, and I quote:
I don't think...lowering the threshold from 25% to 10% and a risk-based approach are mutually exclusive. I think they actually go hand in hand. I would note that the 25% isn't so much a standard as it was an initial global recommendation that everyone just kind of grabbed on to. There is room to go down to 10% and provide more information for the RCMP.
The amendment that we proposed would have enabled the RCMP to cast a much wider net in terms of tax avoidance in particular, and also money laundering.
We also moved an amendment to make it easier for law enforcement to access information during investigations. This amendment would have added specific wording to the bill to ensure that law enforcement and other investigative bodies such as the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, or FINTRAC, could access information from the director rather than having to approach companies individually. It would also have removed the reference to prescribed circumstances with regard to exceptions, ensuring that only minors are automatically exempt from having their information disclosed and that everyone else must apply for an exemption to prove that it is necessary. Once again, this amendment was rejected. This bill could have been improved, but the NDP-Liberal coalition said no.
Not only were our amendments rejected, but, as I said earlier, the bill was rushed, to put it mildly, through the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, on which I sit. In fact, we had just one meeting to hear from departmental officials, and we heard from justice experts on the same day that the clause-by-clause process took place.
Briefs from interested organizations such as the anti-money laundering campaign and the Canadian Bar Association were received the day after amendments were submitted. There were several amendments, and several of these briefs were received after the presentation of certain amendments. It is strange because we received some very interesting briefs from law firms, which had some significant reservations about this bill.
It is truly unfortunate, but that is how this government operates. It waits to take action and then, at the last minute, it acts hastily and imposes time allocation, which is what we have been experiencing for practically two months in the House of Commons. Time allocation is introduced time and time again. I will take this opportunity to point out that the NDP has now adopted almost 55 time allocation motions, which it never, or almost never, did before. This demonstrates the extent of the government's hold over that political party.
As I was saying, by colluding with the NDP, the government is getting its way with obviously shoddy results. Canadians expect the federal government to combat money laundering and the proceeds of crime in a way that aligns with our economic and security partners around the world. Canada must shed its reputation as a haven for dirty money. A future Conservative government will make it happen.
In 2021, the Conservative Party committed to establishing a federal registry of beneficial owners for residential properties and implementing comprehensive changes to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act to give FINTRAC, law enforcement and prosecutors the tools they need to identify, arrest and prosecute money launderers and, ultimately, stop illicit funds from making their way into the real estate market. This is the kind of policy our government will bring in to really tackle the problem of money laundering and tax evasion. Particularly in the Vancouver area where my colleague lives, absolutely huge sums of money are being invested by outside entities that launder money directly through real estate acquisitions.
The provincial and federal registries must be harmonized. In Canada, about 15% of corporations are in federal registries, while 85% are in provincial registries. The two types of registries therefore need to be harmonized so that the provinces and the federal government can work together. As I was saying, Quebec has a great registry that works very well, but it was recently amended. The federal registry could have been even better had the time been taken to study it.
Canada Business Corporations Act June 19th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. As a member of the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, I helped analyze this bill. Obviously, it is a very important bill, considering that it aligns with the provinces' legislation, as my colleague pointed out. I would like to ask him a question.
My colleague mentioned Bill 78, which was adopted in Quebec in 2022 or 2021, with respect to the beneficial ownership registry. I would like him to tell me how the legislation we are about to pass aligns with Bill 78. Obviously, no one can object to the value and importance of catching fraudsters, who are unfortunately present in Canada, and more so in some provinces than in others. I think that fraud is a major problem in British Columbia, although it exists in Quebec too.
As a law-abiding business person who follows the rules, I agree with the importance of laws that help us catch fraudsters. I would like my colleague to talk to me about the importance of ensuring that the two bills are interoperable.
Housing June 12th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister is running deficits like there is no tomorrow and that has driven up inflation.
Inflation prompted the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates nine times over the past year. Homeowners who are making mortgage payments know all about it. The International Monetary Fund has warned Canada: The country is at risk of defaulting on its payments. That is where we are. It is very unfortunate, but that is how it is.
Will the Prime Minister stop with his inflationary deficits?