Mr. Chair, this is the seventh opportunity for the government to show it wants to be transparent with Canadians and to reinforce the importance of Parliament as an institution to have that accountability. How can you hold a government to account if you don't have good information? This would create in law, “The report must also set out the total revenues obtained under the Act and the amounts distributed in accordance with the Act.”
Mr. Chair, you might remember I asked specifically.... In British Columbia there has been a carbon tax. One of the things the government of the day, Premier Campbell's, did was to enshrine in it reporting every year by law, and to have it verified by the Auditor General of British Columbia. When I asked to see if there were similar provisions for this backstop, obviously the government either contemplated it, and then did not carry through, or they didn't even contemplate the idea of having it verified that funds that come in and funds that go out are a principle of so-called revenue neutral.
I think that does not convince or comfort those people who believe a carbon tax would simply be a tax grab, and the recycling, so to speak, of those funds would go back to the province or territory that it was taken out of.
I think this is a great way for the government to show (a) transparency, and (b) that members of Parliament feel strongly about receiving the information so we can hold future governments, including this one, to account. I would ask for their support.