Evidence of meeting #141 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cra.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Bains.
Mr. Villemure, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Lareau, I'd like to hear what you think about whistle-blowers. This situation has come to light because certain individuals have sounded the alarm.
The minister always tells us we have an agreement that protects whistle-blowers, but isn't there a supervision failure here? I often say that, when something happens, it's because there was a possibility that it would.
What's your opinion of whistle-blowers and the mechanism that's in place to protect them?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
When Canada introduced provisions on whistle-blowers, in a way it wanted to copy what was being done in the United States. We know that, at the time, a whistle-blower from the Swiss banking group UBS had alerted the IRS, the U.S. revenue agency, to a fraud case. In the end, the whistle-blower was awarded more than $100 million from the IRS for blowing the whistle, but he also served several years in prison for informing authorities.
However, I don't know enough about Canadian mechanisms regarding whistle-blowers because I haven't made enough of an effort to see how they've evolved. We may have a good system, except that there's a contradiction between section 241 of the Income Tax Act, which prevents officials from providing information, and legislative provisions respecting whistle-blowers. I haven't checked which provision takes precedence over the other.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
That's a performative contradiction to say the least, if I may say so.
What should we do apart from possibly requiring companies to draft more acceptable contracts?
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada often tells us that, when you click on the “I accept” button, you're accepting a lot more than you think.
The American approach in this case would be an example to follow.
Wouldn't it?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
Yes and no. The situation is reversed in the United States because you can't transfer taxpayer information without taxpayers' express consent.
However, you should know that, in spite of that, the Google corporation has seized data. A class action case, Smith v. Google, filed in 2023, is under way. The plaintiffs are seeking damages and interest because Google intercepted data when, under American law, it was not allowed to do so.
However, Google's defence is that it obtained only pixels. However, in the paper written by two professors, one from Stanford University and the other from the University of California at Berkeley, and published by Princeton University in 2017, the authors wrote
Google's tracking software can de-anonymize data through information collected on the user's web browsing history.
So it's possible to track pixels and de-anonymize information. That's what Google claims it did.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, professor.
We'll go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes, please.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's not every day that we get experts so fired up about their recommendations.
Sir, you told reporters that the CRA prides itself on its image as an efficient agency that processes taxpayers' files as quickly as possible. In your opinion, does this approach create flaws that facilitate tax fraud?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
It does create flaws, especially when the CRA receives an amended return. I'm not talking about the initial return. The amended return should not give rise to an expedient payment by CRA. The CRA should, for any amended return, take the time to properly analyze the situation.
I understand that CRA wants to act according to the act to tax expediently. That's fine, but for an amended return, it should be different.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
We started on this conversation and might have veered off a bit. You talked about having a government portal that would have both secure domestic servers and secure technical frameworks to take this opportunity away from international lack of standards or perhaps malicious actors abroad, but I don't think you quite answered the question of whether or not you believe that automatic tax filings could help alleviate the volume of work for the CRA to allow them to focus on the more complex files, whether they are amended files or other files that would have more complications.
In your opinion, briefly, is automatic tax filing helping people on fixed income?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
Well, automatic tax filing requires, nevertheless, some type of exchange of information between the taxpayer and the CRA, so it should be done on CRA software. The CRA should, in fact—first of all—send the taxpayer all the information known by the CRA. Then the taxpayer can correct it in the system.
This would give the CRA a lot more time to work on the files. In fact, we should add that any amount above a threshold should not be paid automatically to the supposed taxpayer unless everything has been verified, first of all, by the person working on the file on behalf of the CRA.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That's perfect. Thank you so much for your time and expertise.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Green.
Mr. Chambers has five minutes, followed by Mr. Fisher.
Go ahead, Mr. Chambers.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Professor Lareau, thank you very much for your expert testimony today.
I thought I might ask about this. There's a Liberal senator's private member's bill about to be in front of the House that would require the CRA to be transparent about those convicted of tax evasion.
In general, do you support greater transparency at the CRA?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
If we're talking about those who are convicted, the judgments of the courts are public. If we're talking about the naming and shaming you find in different countries or in some states in the U.S., that is something different.
Naming and shaming may or may not work. It depends. Without any court judgment, it's also very tricky, because you may have a taxpayer receive a notice of assessment for $100,000 who doesn't owe anything, because the CRA did not know some type of information that allowed the taxpayer to bring it to zero.
If you're talking about a court judgment, that is already public.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much.
In a similar vein, it's been revealed that a record number of writeoffs have occurred at the CRA for corporations that owe money. These are corporations deemed to owe the CRA money for whatever reason—GST, bankruptcy or corporate taxes, for example. This number has jumped so substantially that last year $4.9 billion was waived by the CRA for corporations owing taxpayer money.
Would you support some transparency around what these corporations are?
Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Université Laval, As an Individual
I don't know what type of work was done by the CRA. I cannot imagine that the CRA just decided to forgive this amount of money. If this is so, well, it definitely makes me angry. This should never happen.
Conservative
Adam Chambers Conservative Simcoe North, ON
Thank you very much, Professor Lareau.
I would like to pass my remaining time to my colleague Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Chambers.
Mr. Barrett, you have two minutes and 20 seconds. Go ahead.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Chair, I move:
That the committee summon Felix Papineau and Shawna Parker to testify before this committee on November 26, 2024, provided that the chair and clerk be directed to retain, if necessary, the services of a skip tracer to assist with the service of the summonses.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
The motion was on notice last week. The motion is accepted.
I'm going to Mr. Caputo.
November 26th, 2024 / 4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
On that question of it being in order, the notice on motion says “November 26”, not “December 10”.
