Finance committee  It was a question of how this intergovernmental agreement would compare relative to the U.S. congressional act, or the higher act, and the provisions of FATCA within it. FATCA itself would have required non-U.S. financial institutions, including Canadian financial institutions, to sign agreements with the Internal Revenue Service, under which they'd have to undertake due diligence on their own accounts—that is, to identify their U.S. account holders—and report on those directly to the Internal Revenue Service.

Points of Order  To contextualize my point of order, the bill includes in it the Canada-United States enhanced tax information exchange agreement implementation act, legislation implementing Canadian legislation under U.S. legislation known as FATCA. I am not rising to debate the merits of FATCA, as that would not be a proper use of a point of order. Instead, I rise to seek your ruling as to whether this is properly before the House and now properly before the finance committee, given that Bill C-31 seeks to implement a treaty that has not yet been tabled for the requisite amount of time.

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  I can assure members there are many Canadians who are not dual citizens, but the ambit of the FATCA would require Canadian banks to turn over private information about people who have no idea that they could be considered to have any connection whatsoever to the United States, for tax purposes.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is quite right. The bill's response to FATCA raises obvious concerns about privacy and sovereignty. There was not the kind of consultations that could have avoided those concerns. This is an element in Bill C-31 that attempts to shield Canadian banks from U.S. financial penalties.

Canada-U.S. Relations  Speaker, after lengthy negotiations we have reached an agreement with the United States related to FATCA. FATCA has raised a number of concerns in Canada, both among dual Canadian citizens and Canadian financial institutions. The agreement addresses those concerns. In our negotiations we obtained a number of concessions, including exempting certain accounts like RRSPs, RDSPs, TFSAs, et cetera, from the FATCA reporting.

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  I believe it is an honour to stand in the House and promote the budget implementation act of 2014. On this FATCA, without an agreement in place our financial institutions would still have had to comply with FATCA. That is the problem. It is not whether or not our financial institutions would have had to comply with the rule of law dealing with those American citizens who are abiding here in Canada.

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?

Taxation  Speaker, we had the honour yesterday of being able to announce that after lengthy negotiations, we have reached an agreement with the United States in regard to FATCA. FATCA has raised a number of concerns in Canada, both among dual citizens, Canadian-U.S. citizens, and Canadian financial institutions. The agreement addresses those concerns. The agreement relies on the existing framework under the Canada-U.S. tax treaty.

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.