Thanks very much for the opportunity to discuss this very important issue.
We've been concerned about the taxation of e-commerce for many years because of its impact on our members with significant job loss in the media industry, and its impact on the broader economy, our social and culture life, and also on our democracy.
Foreign producers are not required to collect sales taxes on digital products or services imported into Canada if they aren't considered to be carrying on business here. This creates a very significant bias against Canadian producers. Not only are our governments losing out on significant revenues, but we're suffering economically and culturally, with a loss of jobs, main street businesses, and a weakening of our media. As e-commerce becomes more pervasive in many different sectors and results in greater concentration and monopolization, these problems are growing exponentially.
The OECD highlighted taxation of the digital economy as action number one in its major 2015 base erosion and profit shifting, or BEPS, plan. Canada is now one of a few major countries around the world that hasn't introduced changes to require foreign-based digital businesses to collect and remit sales taxes.
There's no reason why we can't move forward on this. We should also strongly resist pressure to increase the NAFTA de minimis threshold for imports from $20 to $200 or $800. I know you've discussed this issue.
In my 25 years of involvement in tax policy, this issue of taxation of e-commerce or foreign digital services is one of the clearest no-brainers, in my opinion. It involves removing a tax bias against domestic producers, who are also often small and medium-sized enterprises. If the federal government really wants to do something positive on taxation for small business, which has been such an issue in the news recently, this should be its top priority. I hope we'll see some action on this in the fall economic statement tomorrow.
Nathalie Blais, my colleague, is now going to talk a little more about this issue in French.