Government Operations Committee on March 9th, 2016

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Mr. Chair, not as a question but as a follow-up, if I could have a confirmation of the $1 million that is invested I would appreciate it.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I'm sorry about that. I'm not being evasive, I'm being long-winded, and that's different.

Mr. McCauley's question earlier was related to funds being used, and we're updating the Prime Minister's website to improve communications to Canadians with a digital process. The previous Prime Minister had the 24 Seven thing—-

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's completely different.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

But we're not cancelling the action plan as it were, Mr. McCauley. The action will still occur, but we're just not going to advertise it as much.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Minister, it is 7:30, and you've graciously given us an hour; however, normally in our rotation we end with a three-minute round that goes to the third party. Would you agree to sit through another gruelling three-minute question and answer session?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I have to tell you, Mr. Chair, that over the various years, I've been in opposition and I've been in government. It's like Mae West, “I've been rich and I've been poor, and rich is better.” Between opposition and government, government's a little better, but I have great respect for the work of opposition members. I think that at one point I was in the fifth-place party in the House of Commons, so the answer is absolutely yes, I will stay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We have three minutes. Please be as precise as possible, because the three minutes are for the question and the answer.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I was part of a 12-member caucus at one point.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I'll pick up on the point about marijuana. While the government figures out its framework to legalize marijuana, will it decriminalize marijuana to at least ensure that people are not receiving criminal records or going to jail for simple possession and use?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

That process is currently.... My colleagues Minister Wilson-Raybould and Mr. Blair, as parliamentary secretary, are working on this. There is a process. I'm not an expert on that process.

We want to get it right. I think that having Mr. Blair there, given his law enforcement background, is very helpful, but we want to do the right thing, not based on ideology but based on evidence. I'm confident that we will get it right, but I'm not aware of some stopgap measure in the interim.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Mr. Weir, if I may have a quick interjection, I won't penalize your time for it.

Again, the primary function of Minister Brison's being here is to talk about the supplementary (C)s. I know there's always a tendency to get into the political sphere, but again, if we could concentrate our comments, please, on the reason for the minister's appearance tonight, I would appreciate it.

[Erin Weir, NDP, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

No problem, Mr. Chair.

The supplementary (C)s include a request from the Canada Revenue Agency for additional funding for tax compliance measures, which I support, but given the revelation that the Canada Revenue Agency violated its own guidelines by offering a secret deal to millionaires who had avoided taxes through the Isle of Man, how much can we expect it to collect through these compliance programs?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Weir, the last government that I was part of back in 2004-06 made a significant investment at that time in the capacity of Revenue Canada to go after offshore tax havens. In fact, my understanding is that the investment yielded significant financial returns to the government in terms of identifying them.

We are investing in the capacity for Revenue Canada to ensure that Canadians can have confidence in the tax system. That people will be paying their fair share is something we take very seriously as a government. I've had this discussion with Minister Lebouthillier. It's a priority for our finance minister and our Minister of National Revenue.

Unreported tax is identified by the audit program. Just as an example, it grew 24% in three years, to $11.7 billion. The international large business program detected $7.8 billion in unreported tax last year.

I'll tell you that one of the best articles I've read on this was in The Economist magazine, sometime in the last couple of years. The Economist Intelligence Unit did a very good study of offshore tax havens to try to quantify this and, of course, our officials in the Department of Finance and in the ministry or CRA have.

This is a very important issue. The integrity of our tax system is an important question of fairness, and we take it seriously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Minister. I'll have to stop it there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are out of time.

On behalf of all our committee members, I thank the minister and the officials for being here.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

We do have a couple of very brief items to discuss, if I could ask the committee members to stay at the table.

Minister, thank you very much. You are excused. We appreciate your appearance.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thanks very much.

If you'll have me back, I would like to come back to talk about the main estimates, but also about reforming the budget and estimates process. Having served in opposition, I referenced the fact that I have some time, so if you want to talk about some other things too, I am open to that as well.

I want to make it very clear to all members of this committee that committees are the place in Parliament where effective work should be done across party lines. If committees can't function in an effective and constructive way, developing good public policy and holding government of any stripe to account, that is a real problem. I have a personal commitment, having served sometimes in committees that didn't operate that way. I think it is really important. I say this particularly to new members of Parliament. The work you do on parliamentary committees is incredibly meaningful, incredibly important, and to your staff and the team who support you—the work that they do in supporting your work—this is meaningful work where you can develop good public policy and really make a difference in the lives of Canadians.

I look forward to working with this committee as we move forward, and, Mr. Chair, I really appreciate the opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you, Minister. We appreciate your appearance.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I want to thank those who accompanied me here.

I just want to finish on this note. We have exceptional public servants in the Government of Canada. We have some members of this committee who have worked in the public service and who would share that view. We are well served, and I really want to thank them for being here tonight.

Thank you all.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Since this is still being televised, I would ask the committee to go in camera for about two minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

I just want to remind you that you missed one of our members. You skipped the schedule. It should have been a Liberal member for five minutes. You went straight to....

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Can I just make a point of order to have it on the record that you skipped over my time and gave it to the NDP?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

The schedule I have indicates I did not skip over that. The schedule that we adopted at the start shows that in the first seven-minute round we go Liberal, Conservative, New Democratic Party, and Liberal.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Yes.