Finance Committee on May 16th, 2007

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Then on double-dipping, you had the report from the Auditor General in 1992.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Answer their questions, not the Auditor General, not the Liberal Party's--

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

You asked for the basis. I'm telling you the basis--

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Answer the question.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Do you want me to answer the question?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I would like you to answer the questions. Just skip the rhetoric. Go to the question--

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

You have to stop talking so I can answer.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Go to the question--

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

I can't answer when you're talking.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Well, give me an answer. You don't answer--

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Let me know when you're ready.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Order, order.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Is anybody going to be quiet for a little time now?

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Are you going to give me an answer or are you going to chat around with rhetoric?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Order, Mr. McKay.

Mr. Flaherty, I show a lot of leniency to the members. It's their time, so they can ask questions, or whatever. There's about a minute left.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Can I answer?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Mr. Flaherty, you have about a minute left to answer the question, if you can.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

That's six minutes allowed, and he gets to use five minutes and I get one minute.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

No, they were five-minute rounds. He used three minutes to ask the question, one minute for you guys to fight, and now you can use the one minute to answer the question, please. Mr. Flaherty.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

There were at least four studies that recommended that the government of the day should do something about double-dipping because it rips off other Canadian taxpayers. Your party was the government. As usual, you did nothing--just like you did nothing on income trust. If it were easy, you would have done it. It's not easy. It's challenging and it's difficult.

Is it the right thing to do--both of those moves on income trusts and on double deduction by corporations? It's absolutely the right thing to do to promote tax fairness in Canada. I know you want to defend the corporations that take advantage of tax loopholes through the use of tax havens. I know you want to do that, but we don't want to do that. You've defended it in the House--your party has. We're not going to do that.

The debt-dumping example you gave, by the way, is covered by the proposal that we will be bringing forward in the fall.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

No, it's not.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

I have one more person if you can stay for four minutes, Mr. Flaherty. Is that okay? Mr. Wallace has a few questions for you.

[Jim Flaherty, Conservative, Whitby—Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Wallace.... I don't know. No, I have to go.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Massimo Pacetti]

They may be tough.

Mr. Wallace.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm going to ask one question and then split my time with Mrs.Yelich so she can ask one question.

Just from a process point of view, so I understand what we're doing, we have a ways and means motion that has passed the budget in principle in the House. Then it gets split in being put into place. Can you explain why that is?