Mr. Chairman, I'm going to simply say this. I asked about pay equity and I got an answer that included a reference to what was dismissively called “some tribunal”. These are rights. They can't be negotiated away. They can't be legislated away.
The other thing is that this government has had this ideological bent for a long time. This will be challenged in the courts because it's completely illegal, so any reference to saving time by creating this new thing is completely false. With regard to what was done in the provinces that have made this work, this government, in this legislation, is bringing in, with the culpable complicity of the Liberals, a new bar of 70%, whereas Quebec, Ontario, and New Brunswick, to give but those three examples, had set the bar at 60%. The federal government's general rule before was a 55% presence of women.
You have made it mathematically impossible for anybody to get pay equity, and it's a right, and you're going to lose. This is going to be defeated, but it will take that time. As for the dismissive reference to “some tribunal”, I think that shows a total lack of respect for our institutions.
But let's move on. The time is limited.
I would like to understand how the government reversed itself on the principle of not allowing companies to basically put money twice through tax havens. Sheila Fraser, the Auditor General, has come up against this. You've come back and you've reversed yourself on it. Hundreds of millions of dollars are involved. Those are not my figures, but Sheila Fraser's figures. Why is the government reversing itself on this? At a conference I attended in Paris in January, there was agreement on all sides, whether it was from President Sarkozy or Angela Merkel, who was also there, on this reference to the fact that money can transit so easily through these fiscal havens, these tax havens, and that it's one of the biggest problems we have to face.
This government seems to be rowing against the current on this one, and I'd simply like to understand why they're leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table.