Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  We hear this concern over extremely high rates for telecom services from Canadians across the country. I also want to raise the issue of FATCA. This may be something the majority of Canadians do not know much about, but for Canadians who hold dual Canadian-American citizenship, the bill is very troubling. An entire bill about FATCA is enclosed in this omnibus budget bill.

Finance committee  What would happen as well, incidentally, if the amendment were accepted, is it would restore the pre-existing information exchange, because it deletes references to FATCA measures that are inserted in that paragraph of the IGA. Once again, it simply addresses the eventuality of a successful constitutional challenge in the United States, of which many are proceeding, and just takes us back to the status quo with our law, if that were to occur in the United States.

Business of Supply  That bill would permit non-governmental organizations and corporations to have access to information from telecom companies. FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, buried deep in the budget bill, would expose the financial information of about one million Canadians to the U.S. government, and so on. In light of all of this, one could argue that there is a kind of naiveté to the motion I speak in support of today.

Finance committee  There are scholars who are going to be testifying at this committee who indicate that FATCA is “inconsistent” with the terms of the existing tax treaty we have between Canada and the United States because it “provides for appropriate changes to the treaty”. They say the intergovernmental agreement explicitly implements the FATCA agreement, but “superficially”.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Sadly, again, while the government persists in providing some measures that we have either long called for or would be happy to support on behalf of our constituents, there are many more matters of legislative concern in this bill. For example, let us look at FATCA. This implements the Canada-U.S. intergovernmental agreement on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, or FATCA. Grave concerns have been expressed by many of my constituents about these measures.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  One of the things that is most frightening about this budget implementation bill is the attachment to FATCA. For those who do not know FATCA, it is the way that the U.S. government is going to tax some Canadian citizens, about a million of them. Some of them are accidental Canadian citizens, who have never lived in the United States in their lives.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  At the Standing Committee on Finance, we will be studying this budget implementation bill in its entirety, so the committee might need several weeks to get through all the complexities of the FATCA agreement. Can my colleague comment on that?

Agricultural Growth Act  We have seen absolutely absurd combinations, with environmental laws, natural resources laws, and taxation laws like the FATCA provisions that were in Bill C-31 all thrown together into one particular bill. In the case of Bill C-18, we have an omnibus bill that puts in place amendments all related to agriculture, in some cases making similar edits to different bills.

Request for Emergency Debate  Speaker, last night I gave you notice under Standing Order 52 (2) that I would be seeking leave today to propose an emergency debate on the implementation in Canada of FATCA, the U.S. foreign account tax compliance act. As you know, the Canada-U.S. enhanced tax information exchange agreement implementation act is contained in Bill C-31 and is currently before the House.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  However, the sharing of Canadians' information between financial institutions and the Internal Revenue Agency under this agreement, FATCA, would invade the privacy of roughly 1 million American citizens. This is hidden somewhere in the hundreds of pages of yet another omnibus bill. That is not insignificant. There is another difficult aspect that the people at home need to understand.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, yes, this is yet another bill that is likely to find its way to the Supreme Court at some point and be ruled ineffective and that it is not possible to have this bill, particularly the FATCA portion of it. That is something we face, apparently, almost on a daily basis. The government brings forward laws that are in violation of Canada's charter and Constitution and, in fact, of other laws that the government supposedly wants to uphold, like privacy laws.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  I do not buy the argument that it is either this piece with no changes or nothing and then we would be in breach of our obligations. It does not work that way. It is the same for the agreement with the U.S., answering to FATCA and the proposed IGA, where it has to be this way or no way. I do not buy that argument.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  I am going to speak to the tax agreement between the United States and Canada whose purpose was to provide an alternative to FATCA. What is clear, and I think the member can agree, given the complexity of the technical details he gave in his presentation, is that the agreement and the study of the agreement are extremely complex.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  In particular, I was here when the member asked a question of the parliamentary secretary concerning FATCA and the compliance cost of it. He pointed out that it was $100 million that one bank would have to spend in order to come into compliance with it. He mused about what the cost would be for the government to bring this into line, but he got absolutely no answer.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  In Vancouver and on the B.C. coast, people's lives and health are now in danger because the government cannot even see fit to fund search and rescue operations. However, my question is about FATCA. We have a million Canadians in this country who have to now report their own personal financial information, which will go to the U.S. government, and they are subject to fines and penalties because they now have to file taxes there.