Mr. Speaker, I am delighted and pleased to rise in the House to kick off the debate on a rather technical and routine piece of legislation, Bill S-17, the tax conventions implementation act, 2013.
Before I begin, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Senate for its initial work on this bill. I especially want to thank the members of the Senate banking, trade and commerce committee for its thorough review of Bill S-17 earlier this year. I would also like to extend thanks to all the witnesses who appeared at that Senate committee, for their appearance and their high-quality testimony on a subject that can often be technical. For those wondering why this bill started in the Senate first, I should note that, going back to 1976, the convention has been to bring tax convention legislation to the Senate first. In fact, there have been 30 different pieces of tax convention legislation in front of Parliament since 1976.
As members are aware, Bill S-17 proposes to implement tax conventions or tax treaties, either new or updated, with Canada and the following countries: Namibia, Serbia, Poland, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and Switzerland. These new and updated treaties would augment Canada's strong network of tax treaties. Indeed, currently Canada has comprehensive tax treaties in place with 90 countries, one of the world's largest networks of bilateral tax treaties. This is an important feature of Canada's international tax system, a feature that is key to promoting our ability to compete.
What is more, we continue to work on agreements with other jurisdictions, as demonstrated in today's legislation. As part of Canada's ongoing effort to update and modernize our network of income tax treaties, Bill S-17 would achieve two important objectives. First, it would help combat tax evasion by ensuring Canada works with other countries to stop tax cheats. Second, it would help encourage global trade by preventing double taxation. Clearly, I would hope that all parliamentarians and all Canadians would agree that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes.
I think we are all agreed that it is not appropriate that some corporations would take advantage of Canada's tax rules to avoid paying their fair share, or that some wealthy individuals would use an offshore account to hide income tax or evade tax. We are against tax cheats because those tax cheats are essentially hiking taxes on honest Canadians. Honest, hard-working Canadians and small-business owners are left having to pay more taxes when cheats do not pay their fair share, and that is simply not fair.
However, to detect and deter those tax cheats, the Canada Revenue Agency needs to work with and share information with foreign tax agencies around the world. To this end, Canada supports the international consensus to work through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, to set an international tax information exchange standard. That standard is implemented under bilateral tax treaties and tax information exchange agreements like those new and updated treaties included in Bill S-17.
The second objective I mentioned referenced encouraging global trade by preventing double taxation. Here at home, our government has worked hard to cut taxes. In fact, we have done it 150 times, in every way government collects taxes, from the GST to personal tax to business tax and much more. We firmly believe that a more competitive tax system helps create an environment that enables Canada's entrepreneurs to excel, not a tax system that punishes entrepreneurs and stands in the way of their success, both here in Canada and abroad.
After all, if we want higher wages, more jobs and a higher standard of living, we need entrepreneurs to succeed and grow. That creates investment, jobs and helps make our communities stronger.
