Evidence of meeting #194 for Finance in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was taxpayers.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Bob Hamilton  Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency
Peter Fragiskatos  London North Centre, Lib.
Ted Gallivan  Assistant Commissioner, International, Large Business and Investigations Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Blake Richards  Banff—Airdrie, CPC

8:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I already have a point of order.

8:50 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

In the six minutes that we had to question her in order to get to the bottom of the details in this report, you consistently prevented us from cutting in to defend our time against that kind of abuse by ministers in your government.

Then, half an hour before she was supposed to leave, she gets up and runs out the door instead of answering questions about a damning Auditor General's report about the abuse of individual taxpayers and the leniency towards wealthy international tax evaders.

This is at the heart of what we're supposed to be doing in the finance committee, and I appreciate that you've said before that you don't like tough questions. You've interrupted me—

8:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I have not said I don't like tough—

8:55 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

You have, indeed, Mr. Chair.

You've interrupted me when I've asked Minister Morneau yes or no questions.

Now today you've allowed this minister to avoid responsibility to Parliament for a damning Auditor General's report by allowing her to testify for only half an hour when the committee asked for an hour, and by allowing her to burn what little time there was by avoiding the questions all together.

Frankly, the job of the chair of the committee is not to be the bodyguard of the minister. It is to facilitate parliamentarians' holding ministers accountable. That is the nature of our parliamentary system.

8:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

On the point of order, we'll have Mr. Fergus and then Mr. Fragiskatos.

8:55 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Chair, thank you for allowing me this point of order.

I'd like to point out that my opposition colleague violated my rights as a member when I directed my questions to the minister. He interrupted the conversation not to make a point of order but to insinuate himself into the debate. He prevented me from using my speaking time to put my questions to the minister. That's unfortunate because she was coming to what I thought was a very interesting point. She was citing the remarks of a former Conservative minister, and Mr. Poilievre suddenly realized she had to leave after 30 minutes. And yet it was clearly stated in the agenda distributed to all the members that the minister was coming to answer our questions despite the fact she had to attend a cabinet meeting.

I repeat that he violated my rights. As a member, I have a right to ask the minister questions. However, he used my speaking time to intrude into the debate. That's unacceptable. When the chair says it's time to switch off the microphones, you switch off the microphones.

This is unfair. I had a good question for the minister, but I didn't have an opportunity to ask it or to get an answer. That's unfortunate.

8:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I have Mr. Fragiskatos, Mr. Kelly and Mr. Dusseault.

I would suggest that the commissioner is in charge of the agency and that the Auditor General's report is before us. It might be wise to take as much time as possible as parliamentarians to ask the commissioner, who is in charge of the agency—yes, the minister is as well—to draw out the facts.

I'll go to the other comments and the point of order.

If you want to challenge the chair, you can do that.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

December 11th, 2018 / 8:55 a.m.

Peter Fragiskatos London North Centre, Lib.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The last thing I want to do is challenge the chair. All I wanted to say is that I know I speak for the vast majority of the members of this committee when I say that you always run a fair meeting, and that my colleague ought to know, if he checked his email, which is not very difficult, that the agenda for this meeting was sent out in a very timely way.

We had an opportunity to know exactly what was planned for this meeting, and each point of order that he made not only interfered with my colleague's questioning, as he rightly points out, but also deviated entirely from the substance of the points that were raised.

His “point of order”, if I can put it this way, was not a point of order. We need to really be serious about the work we're doing here, and I worry that my colleague is not as serious as he claims to be.

8:55 a.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

In the interest of proceeding to Mr. Hamilton, I'll pass.

8:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Mr. Dusseault.

8:55 a.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

My question is, if the committee asked for one hour with the minister, who decided that 30 minutes was enough? Why didn't we schedule another time to get the full hour-long meeting that was supposed to happen with the minister?

I was wondering how this situation happened in the first place.

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

The invitation was for two hours for both. When the minister responded, she could only agree to one hour because of a cabinet meeting. Then the cabinet meeting was moved up to an earlier time, and we, therefore, agreed that we would start at 8:15 rather than 8:45 so that we had at least half an hour with the minister.

9 a.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Why was there no discussion with everyone around this table to see whether this was an acceptable situation? If the committee agreed to one hour in the first place, who decided that 30 minutes was enough?

9 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I think it relates to the issue that the only date she could accept with any time was today; otherwise, we'd end up going into 2019.

I'll take responsibility for accepting for today, because I thought it was better to have her come in for at least half an hour before the adjournment for the Christmas break, rather than leave it to 2019. We have the commissioner here as well, for the rest of the time.

9 a.m.

NDP

Pierre-Luc Dusseault NDP Sherbrooke, QC

Will she be here for another 30 minutes in 2019? Is this your plan?

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I would think, if we're going to go to 2019, that you'd want to go to basically an hour then, not half an hour. Half an hour is really difficult, because you only get four questions. You understand that.

Mr. Fergus.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

If I recall correctly, Mr. Chair—and I'd love to have the clerk take a look at it—what was discussed was in camera, so I feel very reluctant to raise this publicly. I'm pretty certain, however, that the motion we passed was to ask the minister to appear. There was no time allotted to it. The normal practice, of course, is that we would like her to be here for an hour.

The fact is, however, that she came before Christmas and before we go off back to our ridings for the next six weeks, which I thought was very generous of her. She made the accommodation to come right away. If I remember clearly, there was no mention of an actual time.

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

I'll read to you what was agreed, and then we'll turn to questions for the commissioner and deputy commissioner.

On committee business:

It was agreed, — That, considering the statement in the Minister's mandate letters from the Prime Minister that Ministers be held accountable to parliamentary committees, the Committee request that the Minister of National Revenue and officials from the Canada Revenue Agency appear before the Committee for a briefing on the Tuesday, November 20, 2018, report published by the Auditor General of Canada on the Compliance Activities of the Canada Revenue Agency; that in their briefing the Minister and officials explain to the Committee steps being taken to address concerns highlighted in the Auditor General's report; that this meeting be televised.

That was the motion. It didn't specify time—

9 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Thank you.

9 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

It's usually standard procedure that we have the minister for an hour. In fairness to the CRA and the minister, they have outlined their action plan to us as part of that request in our meetings.

We will come back to Mr. Fergus. You have about a minute left, if you want to go. Then we'll go to Mr. Poilievre and go down the line from there.

9 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Mr. Chair, the question that I would love to have had answered was the one the minister was going on before we went into the next round of questions to the commissioner.

Commissioner, I don't know if you're able to continue in the line of response that the minister was about to give, in terms of providing us with some testimony, or a public reaction, from a former minister for national revenue, Jean-Pierre Blackburn.

9:05 a.m.

Commissioner of Revenue and Chief Executive Officer, Canada Revenue Agency

Bob Hamilton

I'm actually trying to remember exactly where we were when we left off when the minister left. I'm not sure that I can add very much to that particular issue. I'm happy to respond to other questions, but off the top of my head, I can't really think of anything productive that I could or should say in that regard.

9:05 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Okay, thank you.

We're in five-minute rounds. We'll start with Mr. Poilievre, and then Mr. McLeod.

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON

Commissioner, the Auditor General found, in paragraph 7.32, that “For example, if the Agency asked an individual to provide a receipt to support a claimed expense and the taxpayer did not provide the receipt within 90 days, the Agency would automatically disallow the expense as an eligible income tax deduction.”

That's for average taxpayers. By contrast, for others, such as those with offshore transactions, they found that the time frame to provide information was sometimes extended for months or even years. For example, banks and foreign countries could take months to provide information on the taxpayer's offshore transactions to the agency or to the taxpayer.

Why is it that this agency, under the direction of your Liberal minister, goes after small pizza shop owners because they don't have a receipt for filling up their tank of gas for a delivery, but the international tax evaders who have offshore accounts get months of reprieve from pursuit by your department, according to the Auditor General?