Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech on Bill C-13, Bill C-15, as was just noted again in this House, is intended to clarify several provisions of the Income Tax Act and does not make any new law. Accordingly, the Bloc Quebecois supports this bill.
My speech will be short. I want to come back to the point that I raised earlier, and I think that this bill shows it even more clearly than the previous one.
We have before us a bill that is over 650 pages long, with some 150 clauses that, I repeat, are intended to amend some previous legislative provisions in accordance with the legislator's desires or with amendments made to other laws so that all these amendments are in the Income Tax Act.
The point I want to make is as follows: although it is good occasionally to have bills that clarify previous provisions or do some housekeeping, this shows that legislators must act wisely in passing these laws the first time. Of course, I am not saying that once passed, a law must never be revised, but it should be changed for substantive reasons, to adapt it to new circumstances and to situations that prevail when the need for change arises.
This bill is meant to correct errors, if you like, that were made or adopted in some other legislative provisions. Especially at this time of year when everyone lucky enough to have a job must file an income tax return, it is easy to understand how hard it is for the ordinary citizen to make sense of all this mountain of legislation. We add to that complexity when we have to pass this kind of legislation.
Although it will be more understandable for specialists, ordinary citizens will still have difficulty making their way through it. That is what we want to emphasize to the government. When you present a bill, you should ensure that it is as easy to understand as possible for the citizens who will have to comply with it.
That said, I repeat that the Official Opposition will support the amendments contained in Bill C-15.