Finance Committee on Nov. 24th, 2016

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

But you know that by doing so.... Those 182 people may not be physically able to move or relocate their families, so they can be facing losing their jobs, and there are 2,396 cases where people across the country have been given the same scenario. Can you understand me? There is a human issue here with these people. There are difficulties. There are families, kids, schools, and all of that. You are hiring, and you are spending a lot of money. You have about 2,400 other people across the country who are facing the same destiny. Can you explain that too, please?

[Roch Huppé]

Yes, in all of these cases, as I was mentioning, we have to offer these people the possibility to relocate. You are absolutely correct. In some cases they will opt not to relocate, for whatever reason. It could be family reasons or others. In most of these cases, though, even if they elect not to relocate, they will not lose their jobs, because we will be offering them a new job in their current location with the training they will require to complete the new duties they will be assigned.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Would you have records of that, if we were to ask for records at some point?

[Roch Huppé]

Absolutely.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Thank you.

There is a big investment that was announced last year, and now this year, of about $444.4 million in cracking down on offshore tax evasion and doing all that stuff. There is an existing program, and I just heard the minister saying that she is estimating $500 million of extra income over five years. We call it an estimate. Now, with the investment of $444.4 million and an estimated $500 million over five years, do you really think the investment is worthwhile, when we have existing programs in place, such as the stop international tax evasion program?

What do you see your ROI being on this, if you are going to go and spend all this money? I would really like to know a breakdown on this. Is it going to lawyers? Is it going to computer systems? Is it going to extra staff? Where is this $444.4 million going to go? I would really like to know the breakdown of that number.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Gallivan, go ahead.

[Ted Gallivan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I think the $500 million was per year over five years, so the budget 2016 announcement was for a total of $2.5 billion.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'll review the notes, just in case, because I was writing it down as the minister was....

[Ted Gallivan]

So it's a little better. It's roughly 6:1 in terms of return on investment.

You've asked a very good question in terms of the breakdown in IT systems.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Yes.

[Ted Gallivan]

There is definitely a focus on multinational enterprises, and we've made a significant investment there. Our return on investment in that space averages 20:1. However, we are also in the compliance business, so we are making significant investments in terms of promoters of tax schemes that are marketed to small and medium enterprises and individual Canadians, because we think those people are helping induce people into committing tax avoidance and possibly tax evasion.

We are hiring lawyers for our criminal investigation program, because the most serious cases of tax evasion need to be prosecuted, but the standard for criminal prosecution in this country is understandably high, so we are giving them more people.

Then, there are IT investments that are being made to help us data-mine electronic funds transfers over $10,000. We have a record of every transfer over $10,000 inside and outside of Canada. We are up to 29 million records and that's going to continue to grow, but we need IT tools to be able to decide which of those deserve our attention.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I have a couple of quick questions.

We've been receiving calls at our local constituency offices from small employers or small businesses. The number of complaints about how hard the CRA is on those cases has been increasing. I understand that you are doing your job, but in the meantime I hope that.... We don't hear the big news on the big guys, where we are supposed to be putting most of the efforts, rather it's the small guy. Can you comment on that?

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

A committee has been set up to look at this. I want to thank this committee that worked on tax evasion and tax avoidance. It gave us a report that contained 14 recommendations. It is important to us to continue to work with our international partners on tax evasion and avoidance.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

I'm not getting an answer here, I guess.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Do you mean that you can't hear it?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

My question is very straightforward. Are we going after the big guys, or are we now hiring more people to go after the small guys?

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Could you clarify your question, please?

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Can I—

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

You're over time, but let's clarify your question.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

The effort of hiring more people.... It seems like the number of calls we've been receiving locally at our constituency offices has been increasing dramatically lately. We've been heavy on the small mom-and-pop operations, and I'm afraid, in this scenario, that you are just chasing the small guy, the small business, and leaving the big tax evasions.

What about that?

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I really do not agree with you on that.

The agency is working on abusive tax evasion and tax avoidance. We are going after the big players.

We are talking about the G20, and I fail to see what a small business could do at the G20 level. We have multilateral agreements. The considerable funds we have received must be used to hire specialists who will work on aggressive tax evasion and avoidance. So we are talking about large enterprises and people who have offshore accounts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both. We're well over time, Ziad.

Mr. Dusseault, go ahead.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for being here with us today.

First, I'd like to talk about what I just heard regarding the advisory committee on tax evasion.

You said it had already produced a report and that it made 14 recommendations. Perhaps I missed something, but has the report been made public, or are there plans to release it eventually?

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

The report will eventually be made public. We are going to implement the committee's 14 recommendations.

[Pierre-Luc Dusseault, NDP, Sherbrooke, QC]

Will all 14 recommendations be applied?