Debates of April 24th, 1995

Income Tax Act

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

Let us get the difficult job of balancing the budget done before we give any tax relief. That was the commitment we made. We said we would have tough and difficult times and we are going to have to reduce expenditures. But while we reduce expenditures, which means we will be spending less on Canadians, we did not promise any Canadian they would get tax relief. We thought that was unfair. We did say that there was light at the end of the tunnel. Let us get the job done. If and when the job is done, then we will promise to phase out the GST at that time.

Colleagues from the other side went across the country saying "We will get rid of the GST if you vote for us". Well, Canadians may have voted for them, but Canadians are still waiting. Unfortunately, the bad news is that Canadians are going to have to wait a long time before this government delivers on that promise.

Our credit is going down the drain. Moody's has downgraded our rating. Where is it going to end? We are now paying higher interest rates because our credit has gone down. That means that business has to pay higher interest rates. It means that the government has to pay higher interest rates, and that means that the Canadian taxpayer will have to pay more taxes.

This government cannot manage the affairs of the state. Moody's has downgraded our credit rating and that will have ramifications for years to come. How will we be able to regain our AAA credit rating? How will we be able to stand up as one of the great nations of the world?

Canada has a fabulous bounty of natural resources. We have hydrocarbons, we have prairie wheat fields, we have hydroelectricity, we have forests, we have minerals. It is all gone, because we went to the bank and put it up as collateral to borrow money to buy more votes. Here we are today in one of the greatest countries of the world. We have natural resources in excess. We have opportunities. We are the light for people around the world who can only dream of a country like Canada. There are opportunities for anyone who wants to come to this country and work hard and prosper. That was the great Canadian dream. People could come here with freedom, with hope and with opportunity. And they came by the millions. They populated this country and they built this country, only to see what they had built come down around their ears by the mountain of debt that has been foisted upon them by governments that care less about Canadians than their own self-interests.

The tax system in this 200-page bill has many pages that are incomprehensible to many people. Let me speak to a few of them.

In some ways, while the government has said that it does not want to increase taxation, it is casting the net wider so that it can catch more taxpayers. Even though tax rates are not going up, the government is doing its darnedest to ensure that more people pay taxes. That is the essence of Bill C-70.

The government talks about cleaning up the provisions for debt forgiveness. Debt forgiveness is a situation where a business or an individual runs into serious financial problems. Let us say that someone owns an apartment building and that the value of the building goes down because there are no tenants. The rents cannot meet the mortgage payment and the mortgage company forecloses. He has lost his investment. But the Minister of Finance wants his pound of flesh. That person has suffered a major setback. It could apply to someone who has a rental property of a house, or it could apply to someone who has a business-somebody who has, for one reason or another, had a reversal of his financial fortunes and has had to go to the lender to ask for a forgiveness of the debt because he can no longer afford to pay. And the tax man says "Before you do that, remember that you owe me".

He owes the tax man in a situation where his financial fortunes are going down rather than up. I always thought this was an income tax. I guess not, because the Minister of Finance feels that it is his duty to stick his hand into the pocket of even the businessman whose business has failed.

What about some of the other situations, such as taxation of income from foreign affiliates? I know that there have been situations where business has been found to try to minimize their taxation. However, here we have again an expanding of the circumstances into which income from property-which is a passive income, as opposed to active or business income-of foreign affiliates is not taxable in Canada.

We are trying to cast further and further afield. Now we are casting abroad to ensure that a nickel earned anywhere in this world, not just Canada, does not escape the Minister of Finance and his bureaucrats' fingers, which seem to go all the way around the world to get that last dime of income tax to pay for the debts and the interest and so on, which is killing this country.

Then we have the financial institutions and the securities dealers. We are now going to change the rules for them too and again we are going to cast the net a little bit wider to bring them into the taxation end as well.

We have always believed that a dollar earned is a dollar taxable. We do not disagree with that basic philosophy. But now we are finding that a dollar unearned is a dollar taxable. Those people who deal with investments on a trading basis are now going to have to pay income tax on the income on the basis that the shares had already been sold. But they still have them; they have not sold them. Now they are going to have to pay income tax as if they had sold them.

Here we have a situation where an investment person who is managing his money and has it invested and is a trader in securities is fully invested, is doing well and his shares are going up and he has not sold any because he feels they are good and adequate investments. Now he finds that come April 30 he has a big tax bill, even though he has not received one cent, because the Minister of Finance wants to cast that net wider to catch every nickel he can lay his hands on because he is desperate for cash. While he is desperate for cash, he feels perfectly at liberty to dip his hands into the pockets of anybody he can find. Never mind about their cash flow problems; he does not seem to have any concern about their cash flow problems.

Here is someone who is going to have a tax liability and a debt to be paid, plus interest if he does not have the cash, because the shares he is holding and continues to hold have gone up in value. He has not sold them. He does not have any money. He has not realized any gains, and yet he has a tax burden. Do you not think that is stretching it a bit too far? I do.

How are we going to encourage investment if every time somebody makes a dollar, even before they get the dollar the tax man has his hand in his pocket saying "You owe me. You have to pay it now. I am going to charge you interest and penalties unless I get it now."

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Broadview—Greenwood, ON]

What is the solution?

[John Williams, Reform, St. Albert, AB]

The solution is quite obvious: get our fiscal house in order so that we can manage our own cash flow and let business and other Canadians manage their cash flow and let them pay their taxes when they have earned the money. Remember, I said a dollar earned is a dollar taxable, but I did not say that a dollar unearned is a dollar taxable. That is a major quantum leap by this government into a new area of taxation, which we cannot condone under any circumstances whatsoever.

Not only that, but there is a semblance of offsetting. They are saying that if your shares go down they will allow you to do it at market value. If you have a loss and a couple of gains, one up and one down, you can net them off and pay tax on the difference.

That is okay in an inflationary environment. It is okay during a period of economic growth because by and large things tend to go up. This government will be the beneficiary of enhanced taxation during the good times. We are in an economic growth

period at this time and no doubt that is why the Minister of Finance introduced this particular piece of legislation.

Think about it this way. We go into an economic downturn, and we surely will as it has never failed before. I think the economists would agree that one will come along perhaps sooner rather than later, much to our misfortune. At that time after all the securities have been taxed at market value we do know that the preponderance may be that they will drop in value. At that time all of them will be asking for tax refunds which will further erode the government's fiscal position at a time when it needs the money most.

The government should keep its hands off the taxation of unearned income. That is the solution. This government should not get involved in a situation that increases the volatility of tax collection.

Any business and any government should know that the most important thing is a steady flow of income. This measure is going to try to generate additional revenues for the government in the short term while the economy is good. I can assure you that on the other side of the coin the chickens will come home to roost during the economic downturn. That is when this government will need the money most.

Other little arrangements in the bill are things like funeral expenses. Most of us do not pay too much attention to funeral arrangements. Tucked away in Bill C-70 is the opportunity to put $15,000 cash into a trust fund to pay for funeral expenses on one's death.

I am sure that the rank and file Canadians have $15,000 in their pockets and are just running out to put $15,000 into a trust fund now in order to ensure that they get properly buried when the time arrives. Not only that, they are going to be able to defer the taxes on the income.

Unfortunately the average Canadian cannot afford to run out today and put $15,000 in a trust fund to ensure a proper burial, but the rich people can. Here is another little giveaway to rich Canadians by telling them how they can shelter their income. Just stick $15,000 in a trust fund to ensure that they get a proper and adequate burial. If we think about that amount and the interest that is quite a funeral the yuppies are going have on their demise.

Perhaps I should buy some shares in these funeral home groups. They have been doing not too badly. I missed out on it before but maybe it would be a good idea to jump back in. Maybe they are going to make more money. Maybe $15,000 funerals are going to be the order of the day rather than something more appropriate for those who have less money. You never know.

Why in this time of difficulty when the Minister of Finance says that we need all the money we can get is he allowing rich people to tuck aside $15,000 plus interest, plus the income so that they never have to worry about it again? This nice little tax loophole has popped up from a government that promised to get rid of them.

The solutions are that we be fair to all Canadians. Surely the rule has to be that we are fair, that we ensure a small group of people who have ready access to government members, cabinet ministers and so on, should not be entitled to some special privilege which other Canadians do not have.

We should be fair to all Canadians. If the average Canadian cannot afford to put $15,000 into a trust fund for his funeral arrangements, then I do not think rich people should either. If they are that rich they can afford a few dollars to get themselves buried.

There are also the real estate investment trusts. Quite recently the real estate market in office buildings has not been doing so well. Too many Canadians were talked into these trust funds. We ran up the price of office and other buildings in large cities like Montreal and Toronto with the expectation that these small time investors were going to make big dollars.

Lo and behold what did we find? Down it went because the market was oversubscribed. The rich people took the money. They ran off home and the poor little investor was left with an empty building. He lost his shirt so they have now made some changes to the real estate investment trust taxation to allow these things to be rolled into an RRSP.

Here we are again giving an artificial incentive to Canadians to buy into real estate. In five or ten years from now when the market goes down again they will be left holding the bag while some people will walk home with the cash and I do not think they will be the small time investors.

During the Easter break, a mortgage free, nine storey office building in Edmonton was transferred for $1. There were not enough tenants to pay the taxes. It was losing $250,000 a year. Read it in the Edmonton Journal . It changed hands for $1. It was mortgage free. The city tax assessor said it was worth over $2.5 million. For one dollar. If that had been in a real estate investment trust how much of that dollar would the investors have received? Nothing.

We must be careful when we provide these tax incentives to the small and average investors. If we give these artificial incentives, we create a demand that should not be there. People jump in, the value goes up. We have heard this story so often. It is most unfortunate because it is always the small investor who loses.

There are many rules on the mutual fund reorganization again to try to help small investors. However, we must be very careful that we do not provide artificial incentives to these people. If these investments are lost, we know who they will be pointing their fingers at. They will want their taxes back. That will be a

further drain on the revenues of this government. That whole thing leads to volatility.

These are a few concerns I have about the bill. I certainly hope this government can see the light of day. The job has to be done as far as balancing the budget, and not these small changes, not an overhaul the Bloc Quebecois was talking about.

We are talking about a real concerted effort by the government to recognize that a fiscal crisis requires serious measures to get the budget balanced. Once that has been done, we do not have to worry about the pressure of increasing more taxes. We do not have to worry about the pressure of casting the net wider and wider to take in more and more people. We can start to live within our means. When the government feels it can dip into somebody else's pocket to help its cash flow problem, it makes the cash flow problem worse for the person who has to pay more taxes. The government does not seem to think about that.

If we are to create jobs we have to create the capital pools in the hands of the entrepreneurs who feel the money will not be taken away from them arbitrarily and prematurely with too much tax. We have to give them the opportunity to make a profit so they can feel confident to go out and build the factories, sell the products, hire the people and create the jobs which then create a whole new number of taxpayers. It is so much better, easier and fiscally prudent to have taxpayers than tax consumers.

I know the Liberal government is proposing this but it hired them in the first place. We should have fewer civil servants because it reduces the tax consumers. If we can help them to get into the private sector, perhaps even to start up their own business, surely that has to be beneficial because now they are tax producers rather than tax consumers.

This past weekend in my riding I was at a trade fair. I was talking to a young lady who had been employed in the health care services and now has her own little business. She is doing quite well and is quite happy. She is now a tax producer rather than a tax consumer.

I was also talking to a young entrepreneur, not yet 30, on his own without any government grant or assistance in any way, shape or form. He has created a computer program that he is now selling right across the country to large retailers and so on. If anyone wants to know about it, it is called "The Estimator". It does a wonderful job of helping companies estimate large projects. He wants to go international with it as soon as he can generate the cash flow.

Here is a young entrepreneur with no subsidy, no grant, on his own, who has developed a product with which he will now be generating some export revenues. These are the types of people we must encourage rather than drowning them in another 200 pages of tax rules so incomprehensible that they cannot get their minds around them. He now has to employ professionals, lawyers, accountants and so on to figure out how he should be doing his taxes.

Another item in the bill is the amendment to the way people may file notices of objections. Large companies now have to state specifically the areas in which they are objecting concerning their income tax if it is being reassessed.

On the public accounts committee we were dealing with what became known as the resource allowance boondoggle; $2 billion of tax money went down the drain because of this simple little loophole and an inefficient civil service. To recap, in 1980 the government and an oil company agreed to disagree on the assessment of income tax. It said: "See you in court". This is a typical situation. It was nine years later, in 1989, before it went to court and the government lost, much to its chagrin and much to its surprise because it thought it had a watertight case. It wrote the rules and the law and felt it understood them but it lost. That was okay because it would appeal.

In 1991 the government appealed and lost. It then asked how much money was involved. Believe it or not, it had never once figured out how much money was involved. By 1991 it realized that it was $1 billion. It was astounded. The government had no idea of the amount of money.

However, that was okay because it was to take it to the Supreme Court and show everyone who could win. The Supreme Court said it did not even want to hear about it. That was the end of the situation but it had one little twist. The last appeal court which pronounced a judgment on the situation ruled so much in favour of the oil company that when we asked Revenue Canada officials: "How much more money have we lost?", they said that it could be another $800 million plus interest. We lost $2 billion because nobody in 1980 asked how much money was at risk. Not only that, this situation remained wide open for 10 years and 40 other oil companies found out about it and adjusted their taxes back to 1980 as well.

It cost the Canadian taxpayers $2 billion because the civil service was not up to speed on the situation. With this measure that loophole has been closed by the Minister of Finance. It was closed largely because of the work done by the public accounts committee last year. We do not want to see this happen again. I do not want to stand up as a parliamentarian who is accountable to the public to say: "There goes another billion", but I have had to do just that.

The Canada pension plan loses $1 billion every five years. The people who are responsible for the CPP went to Treasury Board and asked for a new computer system. They said: "For every dollar we spend on a new computer system we will save $3". It sounded like a good investment to me, but Treasury Board said that it did not have the money. Therefore we will lose $3 and save one.

That is how the government is being run. That is the type of thing that is going on today. When I tell Canadians about these fiascos they shake their heads in disbelief that their taxes are being spent in that fashion. What senior bureaucrat, who is being paid a large salary, can justify refraining from spending one dollar if the evidence is there that he is going to save three?

One billion dollars will be lost through overpayments that are non-recoverable over a five-year period because they do not have a comprehensive and efficient computer system. That computer system would originally have cost $250 million. Now it is up to $340 million. Maybe by the time it is delivered it will be up to a billion and nothing will be saved. However, the point is that we are paying these intelligent, knowledgeable and educated people whose job it is to manage taxpayers' money to the benefit of Canadians. We are so tied up in rules and regulations that we cannot make an intelligent decision any more. We cannot say to the taxpayer that we are running the country efficiently.

However, we can produce, after a whole year, another 200 pages of incomprehensible law by which Canadians must abide. That is the problem not only with Bill C-70 but in the way the government is not attacking the problem. We need responsible government that is going to balance the budget and get the job done.

[Dennis Mills, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Industry]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my speech on the debate by reminding not only members opposite but all Canadians about our commitment in the red book to the GST. The hon. member from the Reform Party suggested that we on this side of the House had forgotten about the commitment which was made during the last election. It is clearly stated on page 22 of the red book. I would like to quote a couple of sentences from it. It reads as follows:

Fairness, simplicity, and harmonization should be key objectives of the tax policies. But instead of introducing fairness and simplicity into the tax system, the Conservative government not only imposed the greatest tax increases in history, but compounded unfairness and complexity by introducing the GST. The GST has undermined public confidence in the fairness of the tax system.

The GST has lengthened and deepened the recession. It is costly for small business to administer.

We stated that:

In the first session of the new Parliament, a Liberal government will give the all-party Finance Committee of the House of Commons a 12-month mandate to consult fully with Canadians and provincial governments and report on ways to achieve tax fairness. In particular, the committee will be mandated to report on all options for alternatives to the GST.

I recite those paragraphs from the red book because I am one member of Parliament who believes passionately that the tax system must be reformed. I stated in opposition for four years that the GST was not the way to go, that our current tax system, both personal and corporate income tax, was complex and unfair.

My proposal was quite specific. I worked with many chartered accountants and tax lawyers and we came up with the proposal of the single tax system. I was happy to see today, after almost six years of work, that the Globe and Mail has finally acknowledged that this may, in fact, be a pathway that we should consider taking.

The point I want to make tonight has to do with the role of the opposition. When I learned that the Reform Party elected close to 50 members during the last election, I was pretty excited about it in the sense that one cornerstone of its campaign during the last election was comprehensive tax reform.

I can remember the leader of the Reform Party coming to my city of Pickering, to CFRB, one of our larger radio stations. He took a whole morning on CFRB to say: "We must reform the tax system". In fact, he went so far as to say that the member for Broadview-Greenwood was on the right path with the single tax system. He did acknowledge that the Reform Party system was called the proportional tax system but he made a commitment that he would lead his party in the House of Commons and talk about a constructive alternative to the current mess. Now a year and a half later very rarely do we hear the opposition talk about that very specific proposal its members campaigned on in the last election.

I raise that because I think the nature and the spirit of the House has to do with constructive debate. It is from that action and interaction and the agreement and disagreement that we will eventually come up with a good, comprehensive tax system for all Canadians.

What did we hear today? We heard some criticism of this leftover portion of the tax act, part of which we inherited from the previous government. Not once in the speech of the previous member did we hear anything about the constructive alternative that the Reform Party talked about during the last election.

I talk about this with a tone of frustration because we have a spirit and an approach in this party where we debate vigorously within. We also welcome the debate that comes to us from across the floor. On the issue of taxation, the Reform Party has walked the other way.

Reformers have criticized the existing system but have not recommitted themselves to the campaign they ran on during the last election. I believe strongly in this issue and wish the Reform Party would come back and stir up that tax debate in a much more vigorous way.

I am concerned about this as well because I now see that in the United States all the leading Republicans for the presidential campaign are talking about a single tax system or a flat tax system. We understand that even some of the leading Democrats are looking at a total reform of the tax system.

That concerns me because if the United States adopts a single tax system before we do we will see a flight of capital and human energy and human capital out of this country that we have never seen before.

That is why I believe this is one of the essential, one of the prime debates that we must have in the House. I believe that if we would lead the way in total tax reform, comprehensive tax reform from the Chamber, we could also reverse the capital flow back here.

We all know the real challenge for those of us in government today is to get a handle on those capital flows. We know and we talk about the derivative game within all the chartered banks and major financial institutions. They are moving billions of dollars all around the world by pushing buttons.

One of the ways we could attract large pools of capital is by making sure the fundamental tax system is such that it would attract those large pools of capital. With a system like that where we would have those large pools of capital, that would put downward pressure on interest rates.

With that downward pressure on interest rates we would have capital available to the business men and women who are so desperately in need today of that capital in order to start their small or medium size business, grow it and expand it.

That is how we will get the economy going. The instrument we control in the House that can best manage those capital flows, that excitement about investment, that possibility for increased productivity is based in the Income Tax Act.

I listened to the Bloc Quebecois finance critic today taking all kinds of cheap shots at the fact that we were making little amendments to the tax act. Why does the Bloc Quebecois not look at the notion of comprehensive tax reform?

It is interesting. When we presented this idea to the finance committee a few months ago, the finance critic in the committee then for the Bloc Quebecois said: "When we separate this single tax system is the type of system we will have for Quebec. Why would we begrudge it for the rest of Canada?"

I wish the opposition parties, rather than taking cheap shots at minor amendments to the tax act, would get their forces together and really engage us in a debate on total tax reform.

If we do not have total tax reform in the House in about 25 or 30 months from now I agree with the people who say we will hit the wall when it comes to our deficit and debt.

The quickest and most constructive way to get out of this is by dealing with one of the root problems, comprehensive tax reform.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

[Marlene Catterall, Liberal, Ottawa West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to expand on my question of February 15 to the President of the Treasury Board concerning contracting in the public service.

Our second budget was a strong signal that we are determined to constrain government spending. One area that has not been constrained is contracting.

In the five years before we took office the cost of contracting rose at twice the rate of the cost of our own personnel; 7.5 per cent per year, increasing from $2.9 billion to over $5 billion. Under the previous government we were told these figures were simply not available. Our government has collected them and has made them public so they can be scrutinized.

These figures are only part of the story. Public Works and Government Services Canada reported it contracted $9.4 billion of goods and services for departments, and this does not include contracting done directly by the departments. Nor does it include the hidden costs of contracting: the preparation, the evaluation and awarding, supervision and exercising of quality control, the contractors' use of government space and equipment or the expertise of government employees provided at no cost, or the lost productivity of employees who spend much of their professional time dealing with contractors at the expense of their own professional work.

Since the budget this has become a particularly urgent question. Our budget projects reducing the size of the public service by 45,000 positions. We have pledged the utmost fairness and to reduce involuntary departures to the absolute minimum. We will pay $1 billion in early departure incentives to employees.

Training and out placement early retirement incentives will cost millions of dollars more.

The real cost in addition to dollars is the horrendous anxiety for employees, turmoil for the organizations and disruption of services to Canadians.

It is only fair that every effort be made to retain and retrain current employees for available work in the public service. We cannot justify continuing and expanding the use of outside sources to do work that could be done by an employee who would otherwise become another one of the 1.5 million unemployed.

Contracting is an essential tool for good management to meet temporary requirements for peak periods of activity, for one time projects, for specialized skills temporarily required, to provide government services or programs at reduced costs. However, Parliament has no assurance that contracting is being used only where it is cost effective and appropriate. Nearly half the contracting is done with no competition. In one year 17,000 contracts were awarded to single suppliers without a competitive bid.

In many cases contractors are working side by side with government employees doing the same work but for substantially higher fees. While employees are subject to a rigorous merit process to ensure the best qualified are appointed, contractors face no such screening.

There is concern about employees who have been compensated to leave the public service and then return often within days on contract either as individuals or through a company, sometimes while continuing to receive a government pension. This double dipping must be controlled.

I urge the President of the Treasury Board to accept the recommendation of the auditor general to require all departments to account in next year's estimates for full time equivalent personnel on contract. Only then will Parliament know whether the sacrifices being imposed on government employees are not rendered pointless by a growing shadow public service of contractors. I ask him to ensure in the short term that we are not taking jobs, income and hope from people only to have someone else take over their work and income through the back door.

We have people's lives in our hands, their future, their families, their homes, their careers, their children's education, their prospects for a decent standard of living in their old age. That is a serious responsibility and I believe constraining contracting is one important element of carrying out that responsibility responsibly.

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, one of the main responsibilities of the government is to use taxpayers' money in the best possible manner. When it makes decisions regarding contracts, the government seeks to get the best possible value for taxpayers' money and relies on good management.

While the government is concerned about taxpayers' money, it is also conscious of the fact that it is a major employer. As such, it must also be concerned about its employees. We are facing a smaller public service and this will translate into difficult times for many of our employees.

We need only read the newspapers to realize the extent to which the President of the Treasury Board is concerned with employee well-being. He has been meeting with union officials and has said on a number of occasions the government wants to treat public servants fairly and humanely during the period of downsizing.

This means, among other things, living up to our commitment to find alternative employment for as many affected indeterminate employees as possible. In this regard the Treasury Board expects public service departments to examine their contracts for services as well as other internal employment opportunities with a view to offering these opportunities to affected employees. There are currently staffing controls in place in the public service.

The Treasury Board secretariat in consultation with departments and central agencies has been re-examining human resources management and employment practices to identify what new or modified measures should now be adopted.

Again, our goal is to make the best efforts we can to reintegrate affected employees. Increased emphasis is being given to this very activity.

The President of the Treasury Board has asked the Standing Committee on Government Operations to review government contracting services. The committee held extensive hearings during the fall. It continues to do so and is coming quite close to the completion of its task. It will be submitting a report, which government awaits with great interest.

We will still need to contract out for services. There are fluctuations in workloads, for example, during the taxation period. There is a need for specialized services for fleet management of government vehicles. There is contracting for services during emergencies. If a boat is caught on a reef when no government coast guard boat is available we would need to ask someone for help.

I believe this approach in the management of government affairs is truly fair, both for federal employees and Canadian taxpayers.

[The Deputy Speaker]

Pursuant to Standing Order 38, the motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6.37 p.m.)