Evidence of meeting #36 for International Trade in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Serge Cardin Bloc Sherbrooke, QC
Mr. Chairman, I have a question with respect to the sub-amendment.
Why should this information be forwarded to the Minister of Revenue? I imagine that some information is always passed on for calculation purposes. But we are only asking for charges to be returned. At the same time, there must be some mention in the Bill of the information that is to be provided for technical purposes. Why do we have to specifically say that the information must be forwarded to the Minister of Revenue?
Bloc
Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
I have a question for our technical experts.
Is there something in the Bill stating that this information has to be passed on to the Minister of Revenue? Is so, would it be redundant to say it again?
Also, this clause says that a return must be filed with the Minister — and it refers to the Minister of International Trade. But the amendment to this clause provides for information to also be forwarded to the Minister of Revenue.
Is my understanding the same as your understanding of this sub-amendment?
First of all, I want to know whether there is anything in the Bill providing for this information to be forwarded to the Minister of Revenue.
Cindy Negus Manager, Legislative Policy Directorate, Canada Revenue Agency
Thank you for your question.
Clause 26 as it currently stands is a provision that requires every person who is registered to send in their information basically to the CRA, to the Minister of National Revenue. This is the only place where this occurs throughout the act.
This is necessary, of course, for the Minister of National Revenue to be able to administer and enforce the act and to impose the obligations contained within. We would not be able to accept this information through a third party, which the MLB is.
To respond to your second question, on whether the information could be sent to the Minister of International Trade, we don't believe that's a logical suggestion, unfortunately. The information has to come, from the exporters who are registered, directly to the Minister of National Revenue in order for the act to be enforced properly.
Conservative
Bloc
Serge Cardin Bloc Sherbrooke, QC
Mr. Chairman, it's not particularly clear, since we are told that it has to go to the Minister of National Revenue.
But in the Bill, it doesn't say “the Minister of National Revenue”; it says “file with the Minister”, and nothing more. As a general rule, Bill C-24 refers to the Minister of International Trade, whereas here, it just says “the Minister”.
Bloc
Paul Crête Bloc Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Perhaps we could get some clarification.
Manager, Legislative Policy Directorate, Canada Revenue Agency
If you refer back to clause 2, you'll see that the minister is defined as the Minister of National Revenue.
November 7th, 2006 / 3:05 p.m.
Conservative
Ron Cannan Conservative Kelowna—Lake Country, BC
Just as a supplemental, Mr. Chair, that's what my friendly amendment was, that such information be afforded to the minister of revenue, not international trade.
Senior Counsel, Legal Services Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
I would like to clarify one point. Clause 26 is the general requirement for monthly return from all registrants. If there was an amendment here to require information to be forwarded by the Maritime Lumber Bureau, you'd be talking about the returns of information from a B.C. lumber producer going through the Maritime Lumber Bureau.
This is a general requirement for the monthly return to be forwarded by the taxpayer to the Minister of National Revenue.
Conservative
Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I actually need some clarification here. Were your comments to the amendment by Mr. LeBlanc or to the subamendment by my colleague here? I'm not getting a clear answer from you.
Senior Counsel, Legal Services Branch, Canada Revenue Agency
Clause 26 is a requirement that registrants under the act, the exporters of softwood lumber from all parts of the country affected by the requirement to file returns, would file those returns with the Minister of National Revenue. No information is forwarded by anyone other than the taxpayer directly to the minister.
Conservative
Helena Guergis Conservative Simcoe—Grey, ON
I understand that, but we were asking specifically, right now, about the subamendment that suggests such information should be forwarded to the Minister of National Revenue. I understand that you're speaking directly to Mr. LeBlanc's amendment, and I appreciate what you're saying, but now we have a subamendment. Would the subamendment not somehow be a friendly amendment to bring it back around to what the original clause was intended to do?
Manager, Legislative Policy Directorate, Canada Revenue Agency
Do you have a copy of the subamendment that we could look at, please?
Conservative
NDP
Peter Julian NDP Burnaby—New Westminster, BC
There's a lot of confusion around this particular clause. I'd like to move that we table consideration of this clause.
This is just another one of these cases where sixty seconds per amendment does not do justice to the impact of the decisions we make today. I move that we table consideration of this amendment and the subamendment.
Conservative
Conservative
