Bill S-6 (Historical)

Canada–Madagascar Tax Convention Implementation Act, 2018

An Act to implement the Convention between Canada and the Republic of Madagascar for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income

This enactment implements the Convention between Canada and the Republic of Madagascar for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income and a related protocol.
The convention is generally patterned on the Model Tax Convention on Income and on Capital developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The convention has two main objectives: the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion. Once implemented, it will provide relief from taxation rules set out in, or related to, the Income Tax Act. That implementation requires the enactment of this Act.

Canada–Madagascar Tax Convention Implementation Act, 2018

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member's question is very relevant. This is a Prime Minister who was found guilty of breaking the ethics legislation four times by accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in free vacations from someone who was seeking grants from the government. This is a Prime Minister who skipped out on his parliamentary duties to do paid speaking engagements at which he forced charities and school boards to give him their money to do a job he was already being paid to do as a member of Parliament. This is a Prime Minister who brags about a family fortune he inherited, and who kept that fortune in a tax-preferred trust fund that allowed him to avoid declaring the trust fund income on his personal income tax.

That is the kind of Prime Minister we have. It is not surprising that someone who comes from that privileged background, who has enjoyed all of those benefits and has profited privately from his public life, would seek to make profit for those around him. That is why he has favoured the SNC-Lavalins, the Bombardiers and all the other crony corporatists that he is helping.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill S-6 regarding an agreement between Canada and Madagascar.

I will support Bill S-6 because I think it is good for Canada to have agreements with other countries.

I would like to talk about the agreements that were signed while the Harper government was in office and compare them to what the current Liberal government has done. I will talk about the impact on my riding and a few other things.

To start, having agreements with other countries is a good thing. In this case, we are trying to prevent double taxation and fiscal evasion between Canada and Madagascar. If I look at the number of trade agreements that were signed under Stephen Harper, I see 43 trade agreements with huge significance in terms of economic benefit to Canadians. If we compare that to Bill S-6, which seems to have a very small impact, we can see that the government is focusing on things of lower priority.

Where is the focus, for example, on NAFTA? This is an agreement between Canada and the U.S. that has huge economic implications for us, but this agreement still has not been ratified on either side. We still have tariffs of 20% on steel and 10% on aluminum, and that situation is impacting businesses in Canada, especially in my riding. Sarnia—Lambton has a manufacturing base. These kinds of tariffs actually cause jobs to move to the U.S. I would think that the government would have a concern there and spend more time on that issue than on talking about the offshore impacts here in Madagascar.

Again, the CETA accord was negotiated but has not been signed yet by any of the 13 countries. Where is the government's effort to get that in place? It would have a huge economic benefit to Canadians if we could get that going. On the CPTPP, there is not much to say, except that the Prime Minister made a lot of countries angry when he went over there. We are still waiting to see the economic benefit of that agreement.

While I think it is good to have agreements in place, there has to always be a concern about priorities and about working on the things that have the largest impact first.

In terms of the fiscal evasion of taxes, we saw the paradise papers and the Panama papers, but where is the follow-up on that by the Canada Revenue Agency? To me, the amount that could be at risk in Madagascar is a very small amount compared to what is in those papers. We have seen no follow-up, and that is a definite concern.

In terms of avoidance of double taxation, I can certainly speak a lot to the issue of double taxation because we have seen double taxation happen all the time with the Liberal government. Most recently, this week I held a press conference to talk about the tax on a tax on a tax on medical cannabis. In this case, the government put in place a 2.5% tax on the producers after all the deals were signed, an additional tax, and then the provinces have an excise tax of 7.5%. On top of that, there is the GST. There is a 15% tax on what is prescribed by doctors for people who are suffering from pain, vulnerable people with medical conditions.

This is not the first time the Liberal government has decided to target the vulnerable with taxation. We saw this happen with the disability tax credit. In the past, 80% of people with type 2 diabetes or conditions such as autism or mental health disorders, such as being bipolar, were able to take advantage of that disability tax credit. The Liberal government got involved, and then 80% of people were not eligible. In fact, the reason for that change was to try to make them ineligible for the retirement disability pension, which had built up to about $150,000 per person. The government was attempting to claw that back.

It is not good to try to double-tax our own citizens, and to be focusing on the double taxation in Madagascar compared to the double taxation that is happening in Canada does not seem to be the right priority.

It is always good to try to get more tax revenue. It is very important. In order to get tax revenue, we have to take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves.

As an example, with respect to Sarnia—Lambton, the government would receive $4.3 million in tax revenue every year if the ferry border crossing at Sombra was repaired. However, two years ago now, the border crossing was broken by the Coast Guard's operation of an icebreaker when the ice was too thick, crushing the border crossing. It has not been fixed. There has been a lot of time wasted and a lot of economic job loss on the Canadian side. All of the restaurants and services located there went out of business. On the U.S. side, the restaurants have gone out of business.

There was an outcry to multiple ministers in Canada. One would think that the Minister of Public Safety, whose CBSA organization was getting this $4.3 million worth of tax revenue, would have done something. It was only going to be $2 million to fix the border crossing and the government is spending $80 billion on the Gordie Howe bridge, so it is surprising to me that the public safety minister chose to do nothing.

The Minister of National Defence had combat engineers in my riding. I was told that if it was in the national interest to have a border crossing opened, it could be done out of the budget of Minister of National Defence, and he also refused. The member for Milton, the former minister of transport, indicated there was a contingency fund there that could have been put in place, but the current minister told me that this was not the case and that he could not do anything. The Minister of Infrastructure and Communities refused to help.

We even appealed to the Prime Minister's Office. In fact, it is really disturbing to me that when the Marine City mayor, congressman Paul Mitchell, senators from the state of Michigan and the U.S. ambassador to Canada appealed to the Prime Minister's Office to reopen this border crossing, nothing was done. In this example, there was an opportunity for payback in less than a year, in terms of paying to fix the Sombra ferry crossing and getting the revenue, yet the government did not take advantage of that opportunity. That was wrong.

It is currently in litigation, so the crossing will remain closed and the economic opportunity to use that border crossing is lost.

People question the seriousness of the government on the NAFTA agreement. If the government really wants to do business with the United States and will not even spend $2 million to open a border crossing, there is a question about the government's priorities.

That is certainly something we have been talking about as we study Bill S-6 and think about the government bringing this forward as a priority when we know there are other huge issues. There is a huge loss of jobs in some sectors, such as the oil and gas sector, and what about the forest products sector? We know the government has done nothing to address the problems with the tariffs on softwood lumber. This is something we have been talking about since the Liberal government was elected in 2015, and still there is no resolution to this issue.

While it is great to have an agreement between Canada and Madagascar and it is fine to address issues there, hopefully that will be leveraged to take advantage of all of these other priorities that are being ignored while we are discussing this particular bill in the House today.

When it comes to CRA, one of the concerns I have is that we are not taking action on the Auditor General's report. We are very sad about the passing of the Auditor General, but if we recall the results of his report, we know that on average people have to call four times and wait 110 minutes to get an answer from CRA, and a third of the time the answers they get are wrong. I have personally seen all kinds of mean-spirited letters sent to my constituents from CRA, basically threatening to put them in jail. These are hard-working, taxpaying people, and there are very small amounts of money at risk. The amount of money we are talking about in offshore accounts for tax avoidance is far superior to that, and it seems to me that there are already 70 CRA employees in a position to work on this specific sort of thing. Perhaps we should increase our focus on going after the people hiding their taxes in the millions of dollars range rather than the hundreds of dollars range.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's friend and colleague, the Conservative member for Calgary Nose Hill, spoke on the legislation for 10 minutes. For about nine minutes, she pleaded with the government to actually pass the legislation. She challenged why we are debating the bill now. There are many other things that she wanted to debate. I have heard from the opening remarks of Conservative Party members that they are supporting the legislation. In fact, all members of the House are supporting the legislation, yet the Conservative Party wants to continue the discussion. Why is the Conservative Party, which is enthusiastically supporting the legislation, choosing to continue the debate? It is the only party putting up speakers.

On the other hand, the member tried to say the EU agreement was a part of the trade agreements under Stephen Harper, yet then she challenged the government as to why we have not signed off or seen the other countries sign off on the EU agreement. She is criticizing us for not finalizing it, yet she is taking credit as if Harper did finalize it. There are inconsistencies within the Conservative caucus today. I am wondering if she could provide clarification on both of those points.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I want to remind the hon. members that when the Speaker stands he does say questions and comments. It is up to the individual to make the statement he or she wants.

The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is talking about something that is very dear to my heart. As an engineer, I am all about efficiency. One of the things that drives me crazy in the House of Commons is that when we do show up with a bill and everyone is seen to agree to it, then we proceed to discuss it for days. Then we send it to committee where we do not amend it because everyone is in agreement and we proceed to send it on and on. There are opportunities for efficiency.

Why does the government not change the Standing Orders? The reason we debate the way that we do is that this is what the Standing Orders say we need to do. It is within the government's control to change that and make it more efficient. Certainly I would be a fan if it changed the rules. We would definitely abide by those more efficient rules. I encourage the parliamentary secretary to take that forward to his government.

As to the member's other question, the Harper government did all the heavy lifting on the CETA. There is no doubt about that. The Minister of Foreign Affairs showed up to do the final cry before the signing of it and that was fine as well, but now it is not ratified by 13 countries and there are protests. What is the government doing to manage that? This is a very important agreement and it is important that it gets ratified. What actions are the government taking to make sure it puts those fires out?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

We are going to break for question period. The hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton will have two minutes for questions when we return.

The House resumed from February 22 consideration of the motion that Bill S-6, An Act to implement the Convention between Canada and the Republic of Madagascar for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, be read the second time and referred to a committee, and of the amendment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, government orders will be extended by 18 minutes.

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here this afternoon. Bill S-6 is along the lines of what our government's platform and agenda has been over the past three and a half years. The bill fits well within our tax treaties with our international partners and international organizations. It is a routine bill, a routine tax convention, which we need to have implemented.

If I may, I will take a step back in terms of what our government has done over the last three years with regard to improving our tax system, investing in the CRA and investing in middle-class Canadians. Yesterday we had Statistics Canada report to us on the annual Canadian Income Survey, 2017. As an economist by training and someone who reads the daily notices from Statistics Canada, it was wonderful for me to see this report. It was wonderful to know that from the work we have been doing for three years, not only have 900,000 jobs been created by hard-working Canadians and Canadian entrepreneurs but also that the growth that has occurred is inclusive, widespread and benefiting Canadian families from coast to coast to coast, including families and their children in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. It was great to see that over 850,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty.

We based our platform three years ago on the Canada child benefit, which benefits nine out of 10 Canadians. It is tax free, simple and monthly. We based it on cutting taxes for nine million middle-class Canadians, which benefits them and their families. We also asked the 1% of Canadians, the wealthiest, most fortunate in our country, to pay a bit more. Now we see the fruits of those results, which have lifted hundreds of thousands of Canadians and their families out of poverty.

We ran on a platform of strengthening the middle class and helping those working very hard to join the middle class. I am happy to say that we are getting there. We have seen our poverty rate decline significantly. We know we have more work to do.

We have seen tens of thousands of seniors now being lifted out of poverty. That 10% increase in the guaranteed income supplement for our most vulnerable seniors is benefiting my riding and the 17,810 seniors who, according to Statistics Canada, live in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. I know that 1,530 of those vulnerable seniors in my riding received, on average, $800 more every year from the 10% increase in the guaranteed income supplement we campaigned on, that we promised and that we implemented.

I look at this Canada–Madagascar tax convention bill, Bill S-6, as another step forward in improving our tax treaties with our international partners and in building a stronger Canada by ensuring that all Canadians pay their fair share of taxes and that all Canadians can depend on the services that we, as a government, deliver. When I say we, I mean all members of Parliament.

Over the past three years, we have taken action on multiple fronts to ensure that this happens, because when everyone pays his or her fair share, the government can continue to deliver the programs and services Canadians need while keeping taxes low for middle-class families. Again, I allude to the fact that we cut taxes for nine million Canadians, as we promised at the outset. Promise made, promise kept.

As members know, one of the government's first actions was to cut taxes for middle-class Canadians. Over nine million Canadians are now benefiting from this change, with nearly $20 billion over five years of tax relief for families from coast to coast to coast. To help pay for this middle-class tax cut, we asked the wealthiest to pay a little bit more.

Next we made changes to better provide targeted, more generous and simpler support for Canadian families with children. We accomplished this with the introduction of the Canada child benefit, or the CCB, which was implemented, proudly, on July 31, 2016.

In my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, in looking at the numbers for one of the time periods, I see that nearly 17,000 children benefited, and 9,510 payments were made on a monthly basis for nearly $5 million.

If I look quickly at the numbers for the year, I see that nearly $57 million was paid out from the Canada child benefit to families in Vaughan—Woodbridge. That is incredible. That is lifting families and their children out of poverty. That is helping families save for a rainy day and pay for their kids' winter boots. I understand it is a snow day back home in Vaughan—Woodbridge and that the buses were cancelled. If those funds paid for those kids to have an extra pair of boots or a new pair of boots, then I am proud of that.

The CCB is particularly helpful for families led by single parents. These families are most often led by single mothers, who tend to have lower total incomes. In fact, close to 95% of CCB amounts paid to single parents with incomes below $30,450 are paid to single mothers.

The government is committed to ensuring that Canada's tax system is fair, effective and competitive. I am certain that all hon. members know how important small businesses are to Canada's economy. They account for 70% of all private sector jobs and are vital drivers of economic growth in communities all across the country.

In looking at Bill S-6 and this tax convention with Madagascar, we see that this is another tax treaty that is made for the benefit of businesses on both sides of the Atlantic. We need to know that we as a country are eliminating barriers to investment and eliminating barriers to trade, and we have done that with the implementation of CETA and the implementation of the CPTPP and, mostly recently, the newly signed USMCA accord with the United States and Mexico, our two largest trading partners.

This is about creating good middle-class jobs, growing the economy, and growing the economy in an inclusive manner that benefits all Canadians, all middle-class Canadians and all those working very hard to join the middle class.

When small businesses succeed, Canada succeeds. That is why the government reduced the small business tax rate to 10% in January 2018, with a further reduction to 9% coming on January 1, 2019. These low tax rates will enable small businesses to create good, well-paying jobs in communities across Canada.

We know that the best poverty reduction plan is a job. It is giving Canadians skills training and lifelong learning. Hard-working Canadians and entrepreneurs, such as the 13,000 small business owners in the city of Vaughan and in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge, have created approximately 900,000 jobs in Canada since we were first elected. The unemployment rate hit around 5.4%—I think it is at 5.6%—because people are being drawn into the labour market. The unemployment rate is at a 40-year low, something that we should be proud of.

We know there is more work to do, but the fact is that there are over 500,000 job openings in Canada currently. The fact is that people from all over the world want to come and work and invest in our country. There is a reason for that: We have the best entrepreneurs, we have one of the best educational systems in the world, and we are a great place to invest. We have access, through three major trade deals, to all our major trading partners. We have free trade access to over 1.6 billion people, and businesses across the world know this.

These low tax rates will enable small businesses to create good, well-paying jobs in communities across Canada. When we say we expect these results from small business tax cuts, it is because we have a track record of success, giving us confidence in the direction we are headed.

Many positive signs tell us our plan is working. Since 2016, hard-working Canadians have created—as I said, to re-emphasize—hundreds of thousands of jobs, pushing the unemployment rate to a 40-year low and giving Canada one of the strongest records of economic growth in the G7.

Canadian workers are experiencing the strongest wage growth in a decade. We have seen some of the numbers that came out yesterday from the Canadian income survey, showing that after two years of stagnation, wages are on the rise and incomes are on the rise. That is more money in the pockets of Canadians, whether they are low-income, middle-class or upper-class. That is a good-news story. It is more income to invest, more income for Canadians and their families to save.

Most importantly, I would argue, as we compare our finances of governments around the world, that we have had the flexibility in Canada to invest in Canadians. We invest not only in skills training and the Canada child benefit but also in infrastructure through a $180-billion, 12-year infrastructure plan. We sat down at the table with our municipal, regional and provincial partners and worked on both the urban side and rural Canada, where we invested funds in both broadband and public transit. That is due to the inherent flexibility in our fiscal strength in Canada, where we can make these investments and plan for the long term.

Canada's net debt-to-GDP ratio is the lowest among all G7 countries, and we intend to maintain it and bring it down over the medium and long term. However, we understand, as Canadians do, that more needs to be done to encourage long-term economic growth. As I said earlier, one of the things we need to do is ensure that everyone pays his or her fair share of taxes. It is unacceptable that some corporations, both foreign-owned and Canadian, take advantage of Canada's tax rules to avoid tax. It is unacceptable that some wealthy people use offshore jurisdictions to hide income and evade tax.

I am happy to re-emphasize that we as a government, since taking office, have invested nearly $1 billion in CRA to provide it with resources, after a number of years when the prior government cut funding to agencies like CRA and did not allow them to have the tools to do their jobs effectively. We have reversed that. Canadians understand and appreciate that, because our services are delivered and funded through taxpayers, and, as a government, we respect them. We have lowered taxes for nine million Canadians, but we have also asked the wealthiest 1% to pay a little more, and those who attempt to avoid paying their fair share need to be held accountable.

We have addressed base erosion and profit shifting, which was recently debated in the House and which we had the pleasure of speaking to, and we have worked with our multilateral partners to look at ways to deal with transfer pricing for corporations, strengthening the exchange of information with our multilateral partners and providing the tools to CRA to do its job effectively. We need to ensure that corporations and wealthy individuals continue to pay their fair share of taxes and that our tax laws are being enforced judiciously, diligently and effectively.

In order to stop this profit shifting from happening, the Canada Revenue Agency needs information from foreign jurisdictions. That is why the tax convention in this bill puts in place measures to make possible the exchange of tax information from one country to the other. Bill S-6 would help Canadian tax authorities prevent international tax evasion while gathering the information they need to enforce our tax laws.

Canada's network of 93 income tax treaties currently in force is one of the largest in the world. However, we must keep updating and expanding this network in order to encourage international trade and make it easier for other countries to invest in Canada. In this way, getting our tax treaties in order will help the Canadian economy and Canadian businesses compete globally and enable them to hire workers, invest, grow our economy and improve the future of middle-class Canadians, such as those living in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge. Bill S-6 gives Canadians more certainty about the tax implications involved in doing business with, working in or investing in Madagascar.

This bill would make our tax system more efficient, while also ensuring tax fairness for Canadians who already pay their fair share. It would encourage more foreign investment in Canada, remove barriers to international trade and help grow and strengthen the middle class across the country. I encourage all members to support this bill.

As I conclude my remarks on Bill S-6, an act to implement the convention between Canada and the Republic of Madagascar for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, I see this bill much like Bill C-82 on base erosion and profit shifting and much like the work we have done in the finance committee on a study with regard to tax avoidance and tax evasion, which was done very judiciously by the finance committee.

It is great to see committees doing the work that they are tasked to do independently. They work judiciously, make recommendations and produce reports, which are then looked at both externally and internally by ministers.

On this issue of a tax convention and its implementation, it is obviously very important for Canada as a country to work with all of its international partners, no matter how big or small, no matter how near or far, to ensure that we have the proper information exchanged between the two entities so that on a technical basis we ensure that we eliminate double taxation between the two countries for individuals investing both ways, reduce the risk of burdensome taxation and ensure that taxpayers are not subject to discriminatory taxation.

In closing, I will say that by strengthening our ties with Madagascar, our government is seeking out the kind of investments and trade opportunities that are vital to grow the economy.

I have spoken about the treaties we have put in place on the trade front, such as CETA, CPTPP and USMCA. I have also spoken of our plan to grow the economy by lowering taxes for middle-class Canadians and asking the 1% to pay a little more, and the results are bearing fruit. The numbers that were produced yesterday by Statistics Canada show that over 850,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty in the last two and a half years. These are real people working hard every day to provide for a better future for themselves and their families. We as a government will continue to invest in them, believe in them, work with them and work with all of our partners.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very disconcerted by my Liberal colleague's speech today, because Canadians understand that all is not well. The results of the government's actions are not bearing fruit for everyone. We have reports right now that there are more people living with disabilities who are using food banks. We have more people living in poverty. We have more homelessness. We have more people not able to afford their first home. Last month, we had the media reporting that 46% of Canadians are within $200 of financial insolvency. These are very profound facts that speak to the realities of regular Canadians.

A tax regime is just a part of the systemic issues that we have to address. What about stock option loopholes? I have not heard anything about how we are going to address problems in dealing with corporate bailouts, for instance. What about pension reform? These corporations need to be taking their responsibility for their workers and retired workers more seriously.

It is true that we will be supporting this tax regime with Madagascar. However, the situation is very disconcerting, and it is disingenuous to hear our economy being painted with this healthy brush. A lot more work needs to be done. What is next in line that needs aggressive overhaul in our tax regime?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

Before we go to the answer, I would remind hon. members in the House that the other day when we debated this bill, there was a lot of talk about everything but the treaty between Canada and Madagascar. Therefore, I would ask hon. members, whether they are giving a speech or asking a question, to try to stay on topic and be as relevant as possible.

The hon. member for Vaughan—Woodbridge.

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, this tax convention entered into by Canada and Madagascar is based on the OECD Model Tax Convention. The convention is expected to contribute to the elimination of taxes, to trade and investment between Canada and Madagascar and to solidify economic linkages between the two countries. It is similar to other models of tax conventions that Canada has entered into with 93 partners around the world.

To answer the other part of the question from the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh, our government is not stopping. We are working to ensure that all Canadians benefit from the growth in our economy. We know that one person looking for work is one too many. We want to ensure people have the skills to find that first or second job or transition from one job to another.

Individuals who are helped through the Canada child benefit will now benefit from the Canada workers benefit, which again is targeted at low-income Canadians. It will lift literally 75,000 people out of poverty. It can provide Canadians with additional hope along the lines of what our values are as a government, which is to ensure that all Canadians are included in the growth and, more important, that no Canadian is left behind.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech and many interventions at the Standing Committee on Finance. I know that he is very knowledgeable about his files, especially tax conventions and double taxation agreements, which aim to help our corporations be successful and to ensure tax fairness for corporations that do business abroad.

With Bill C-82, the government hopes to revise all our tax conventions because public officials have indicated that some taxpayers abuse them. I know that my colleague is very conversant with Bill C-82 as well.

Would he also acknowledge in the House that, absent the changes provided for in Bill C-82, our tax conventions are being abused by certain Canadian taxpayers in order to avoid paying their fair share of Canadian taxes?

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from Quebec for his question. I would like to answer in French, but it is a bit tricky.

Our government has invested over $1 billion in the CRA to provide the wonderful folks who work there with the services and tools they need to ensure that all Canadian organizations, including multinationals, pay their fair share of taxes.

Our government is working extremely well with our international partners to ensure that tax avoidance, because there is a difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion, is brought down, that we ensure corporations and high net worth individuals do not take advantage of loopholes. We are closing loopholes. We are investigating. Most important, we have the right tools to do such a thing and CRA and its associate partners have those tools. This will be very effective with Bill C-82, base erosion profit shifting.

We all know that under 10 years of the former government, under the Harper regime, that money was cut from the CRA and it was unable to do its job effectively and diligently for hard-working Canadians, much like the ones in my hon. colleague's riding, who I was able to serve with on the finance committee, and those wonderful Canadians in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.