Finance committee  It is an uncommon thing to act this way. We have a massive tax treaty buried within this bill, the so-called FATCA, which may expose as many as one million Canadians. There are measures on temporary foreign workers. There are measures on reducing hospital fees. There are measures within this legislation that deserve the respect we as parliamentarians can give them by doing our job.

Points of Order  But, as a matter of practice, the House has established and operated on this custom of tabling for five years as formally enshrined and much longer than that if one looks at historical practice whereby governments have routinely informed Parliament of international agreements signed and ratified. While I and the Liberal Party of Canada have strong and profound disagreements with FATCA and its implementation, particularly as it infringes on privacy rights and the charter, forces the Canada Revenue Agency to do the IRS' dirty work, and infringes upon our sovereignty, I will save that for a debate for another day.

Foreign Affairs committee  Switching over to something that is international in scope, the Canada-United States enhanced tax information exchange agreement implementation act, which we tend to call FATCA, is in the budget implementation bill, Bill C-31, at this point. I would like to ask a question. Of course, it deals with the fact that we are going to be helping the United States, specifically the Internal Revenue Service,with information so that they can collect taxes from close to one million dual nationals in this country, I believe, who happen to be Canadian and American.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  What protection did the government bring forward when it negotiated the IGA, the intergovernmental agreement that allows this FATCA, or Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act? We do not know what it agreed to, because it is pushing it through. It is pushing it through without the scrutiny that belongs in Parliament. What we are seeing is that the government is saying it will be compliant under the Privacy Act, but we see major problems with this.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  In fact, I think it betrays cowardice by placing something as profoundly important to Canadians as FATCA on page 99 of a 350-page bill, rather than having that debate out in the open in this House for all Canadians to hear and for us to participate in. With respect to youth, let me take it back to Toronto, where we have an extraordinarily high 18% youth unemployment rate in Toronto.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  What Canadian could have imagined the surrender of sovereignty and betrayal of citizenship that is bound up in the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, FATCA, as it is known, buried deep among 500 clauses in over 350 pages? As I just found out from my colleague from Timmins—James Bay, it is on page 99 of a 350-page document. What characterizes this bill as a whole is incoherence.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  The protection of the rights of our citizens is a fundamental role of Parliament, yet the government has not talked to the families who are being affected by FATCA. In fact, it has pushed it into page 99 of this bill to slip it through the House of Commons without any proper consultation with the Canadian people. I have been sitting here listening to my hon. colleague, with all of his spin notes that have come down from the PMO.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  There are changes to trademark law; changes to the Hazardous Products Act and to the workplace hazardous chemicals regime; and substantial and devastating and anti-constitutional provisions under the Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act, known as FATCA. I would ask him if he would not be willing, within his own caucus on that side, to argue against the use of such monster bills in the future?

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  I am talking about the accord on the infamous Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, better known as FATCA, the American tax law on foreign accounts. A number of people have said that this accord might be inconsistent with Canadian privacy laws and that enforcing this law could be costly. Those costs would be borne by the financial institutions and by the Canada Revenue Agency.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, can my colleague elaborate on the disastrous long-term consequences of this omnibus budget implementation bill? Over the years, how will this bill, and particularly the change having to do with FATCA, change the principles that are important to us? What impact will this bill have on the laws that protect Canadians' privacy?

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, I am so grateful that we are actually having a conversation and talking about this issue. The reality of the FATCA that the current administration has accepted is that it does nothing for reciprocal exchange of tax information. It is non-reciprocal; it is asymmetrical. It is unprecedented in international law for one sovereign country to say, “Oh gosh”, and cry uncle, “They are going to get our information whether we like it or not and they are going to punish our banks”.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her question. I completely agree with the member. It is clear that FATCA is advantageous for the United States alone. There is nothing in it to help Canadians. As the lawyers and legal experts explained, the only reason why the Government of Canada accepted this agreement, which will violate the rights of Canadians, is that the U.S. government threatened to impose sanctions on our banks.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Without an intergovernmental agreement between Canada and the United States, Canadian financial institutions and United States persons holding financial accounts in Canada would be required to comply with that, regardless, starting July 1, 2014, as per the FATCA legislation enacted by the U.S.A. unilaterally. It is important for people to understand that this is important. It is an intergovernmental agreement. It is something that Canada has to support because of recent G8 and G20 commitments on the multilateral automatic exchange of information.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  The question for my colleague is that if we use that standard, how much of the rest of this omnibus bill would be on solid ground? I am thinking of the FATCA provisions. It seems very clear there has been absolutely no consultation with Canadians who are both American and Canadian citizens. I also wonder whether or not the minister of state might want to talk to her colleague, the Minister of State for Democratic Reform, to suggest that standard of consultation might well have prevented him from getting into trouble, as he is now on Bill C-23.

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  That is part of the sacred compact that the current government is fighting to undermine through its lawyer in the Equitas lawsuit. I would like to talk about other elements, FATCA. Vancouver Quadra residents are very concerned about the impact of this—