Mr. Speaker, the night before an opposition day we wait with bated breath for the opposition party's motion. However, it was with some disappointment and surprise that we received the motion last night.
The motion reveals that the hon. member from Saint-Hyacinthe understands appearances but is baffled by substance. He received a press release concerning a committee and was all incensed about the composition of the committee.
We now have a motion that deplores the composition of the committee but misses the substance which is that we are in a very real way responding to suggestions from members of the House that we look at the tax system with a view to determining impediments to job creation and growth. This has been undertaken in the most proper way.
The member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot is an expert in the dairy industry. Let us look at the state of the dairy industry in Quebec. If Quebec were to separate would the dairy industry of Quebec be able to export milk to the rest of the country the way it has in the past?
I would consult the member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot on an issue in which he had some expertise. The dairy industry in Quebec is an area where he clearly has some expertise. I would to consult him because he has experience. However, he also would obviously have some bias with regard to that industry because of his familiarity and he was paid by that industry. I would be pretty wary of his advice and I would want it subjected to scrutiny and public consultations that followed.
Coming back to the analogy from the letter the hon. member quoted, if I wanted to understand why the fox wanted into the hen house I would not just talk to the hens, I would interview the fox also.
It has been extremely disrespectful of the member to waste the time of the House. He has really out done himself in the way he has attacked the process. As I said, he understands appearances but he is clearly baffled by substance as he engages in what is really intellectual cross-dressing. This is a triumph of dogma over good sense. In the process he has belittled the reputation and professionalism of some of Canada's most eminent experts on taxation.
He has implicitly attacked the government's demonstrated commitment to tax fairness and ignored the raft of actions we have taken to ensure that businesses pay their share of the cost of providing government services to Canadians.
The member has abused the purpose of supply day itself, a time which we should spend on critical issues, with a motion that contains some regrettable misinformation.
What is really deplorable is not the composition of the technical committee and not the process of taxation review but to leave out of his remarks the recognition he has that this is but a first step in a process that will involve public consultation and consultation with members of the House.
These facts should surprise no one who listened to the minister's budget speech or read the news release announcing the committee. Unfortunately that does not include the hon. member. Let me explain things to him and to other members who are interested.
Why is the committee so small? What about public participation then? This is the first step in a business taxation review. This small group, whose members have expertise in various fields, will assess
the business taxation system as a whole and make useful recommendations and propose useful options to the government.
Public consultations will be held after the committee report has been released. At that time, special interest groups will have every opportunity to make themselves heard-in response to a package of clearly set out options and proposals-before the government makes any policy decision.
That is the way we go about things. We consult the experts and we get, as some might say, something to shoot at. We have a set of recommendations and people can weigh in on either side. We want to consult experts in the fields first.
As the minister said in his budget speech, Canadians want a tax system that is both as fair and as simple as possible. They also want a system that encourages economic growth and job creation. Given the complexity of these objectives, a comprehensive review of taxes related to investment and business activity is warranted.
The last general review of business taxation was internal work that preceded the 1987 tax reform undertaken by the previous government a full decade ago. The time is right and the objectives of the technical committee are clear and concrete, goals that every Canadian from every region can embrace.
The terms of reference were spelled out plainly in the news release that accompanied the budget.
"Improving the tax system to promote job creation and economic growth in an open economy; simplifying the taxation of business income to facilitate compliance by taxpayers and administration by Revenue Canada; and enhancing fairness in the tax system by ensuring that all businesses share the cost of providing government services. In addition, the assessment will consider the interaction between taxes paid by business-including corporate income, capital and payroll taxes-and taxes paid by individuals on income derived from investments".
Promoting job creation, simplification, better compliance, increased fairness, is there any Canadian anywhere who will not agree that these are vital attributes that our national tax system must display or that pursuing these goals must be a commanding concern of the government? That is what we believe and I suspect or at least hope the hon. member shares that vision. His motion is something else. It fails the tests of fairness and openness, the same values it claims are missing from the technical committee process itself. That is regrettable.
It describes the appointed members of the committee in the English version as both judge and judged with regard to business tax reform. Common courtesy and natural justice demand that these men and women deserve better and that such a meanspirited mistaken attack is inappropriate in the House.
They are not judges who will issue binding rulings because the government and the House cannot and will not be bound by their findings. They are there to analyse and advise because they are proven experts, distinguished academics, distinguished practitioners, the sort of people who know the field and who will help us to understand it while we remain members of the House with our ability to think critically about the issues they will raise.
They are proven experts like Jack Mintz. They are lawyers and accountants. I have their names and backgrounds with me here. They represent a wide cross section of expertise including Robert Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of Price Waterhouse; Professor Bev Dahlby of the University of Alberta; Gerry Godsoe, a partner with Stewart McKelvy Stirling Scales; Allan Lanthier, senior tax partner with Ernst and Young; Wilfrid Lefebvre, senior partner with Ogilvy Renault; Profession Nancy Olewiler, chairman of the economics department at Simon Fraser; Norman Promislow, a partner with Buschwald Asper Hentelef; Stephen Richardson, a partner with Tory Tory DesLauriers & Binnington.
They are all recognized experts in their field, the sort of people we would want to work on these issues and report to us. They are not judges. They will not make binding commitments for the government. They will analyse and advise.
How does the hon. member dare suggest these technical members are also the judge? Is he suggesting they are potential agents of the business community with vested interests that will make their advice suspect? He knows better. He knows they have highly regarded professional reputations. We are grateful to them for taking on this task.
I believe they have a higher opinion of their professional obligations and their duty to the nation and its taxpayers than the hon. member opposite appreciates. He would well understand that one leaves the baggage of a given client or past experience behind when it comes to an assignment like this for the Government of Canada, that one does bring to bear one's experience. That is why we call on such people.
The real bottom line measure of performance is the commitment we have as a government to the task at hand. I am confident the members of the technical committee will take their work seriously and provide us with important assistance.
Let us remember that the report will be a public document. Its observations and suggestions will be there for everyone to see. Any unwarranted biases or favouritism, which the hon. member automatically assumes would apply to everyone else but himself, will be there for all to judge. The technical committee accepts that discipline.
What about the suggestion in today's motion that the technical committee should include parliamentarians? The answer lies in the meaning of the term technical committee, which clearly escapes the understanding of some hon. members opposite.
Modern tax systems are complicated. That is part of the problem. We have struck a technical committee which has expertise and proven hands on familiarity with the system. Its members are well beyond taxation 101. In fairness to many of my colleagues like myself, the Income Tax Act strikes us as being extremely complicated. I want a little help when travelling through the act to zero in on those areas that are impediments to job growth and creation.
The committee will begin its work high up in the learning curve. I doubt there are many members of the House with the same expertise. We will gain time by involving a committee which is made up of people with these qualifications. The question is: What added value would parliamentary presence bring at this initial, purely analytical stage?
The technical committee should be allowed to undertake its deliberations without being afraid of stepping on political toes. It should be truly independent of direct party affiliations and public constituencies.
What is astounding is that implicit in the hon. member's attack on the committee is the suggestion that he and he alone-or perhaps his colleagues in the official opposition-knows exactly what has to be done. Why consult anybody that has a different point of view? That would lead to a result which might be different from the one they have decided, for ideological and other reasons, they want to propose.
There are dramatic inconsistencies in any event in the position of members of the official opposition. On the one hand they attack tax havens; on the other hand their separatist colleagues in Quebec talk about an independent Quebec being a tax haven. I am not sure where they stand. I want to hear from the experts first and then my colleagues can weigh in.
The committee's deliberations will not be public at first but there is nothing suspicious or sinister at work, despite the misleading and mistaken implication in today's motion.
As is customary in committees of experts, task forces and royal commissions of inquiry reporting to the government, the proceedings will not be open to the public. But the report itself will be published, of course, along with any documentation the committee deems appropriate to support its assessment and findings.
One of the things of which I am most proud is the progress the government has made in bringing policy making out into the open. As was said in the House last December regarding the prebudget report of the finance committee, in the past, budgets were made for the most part behind closed doors with the finance minister consulting in private with select groups of individuals and interest groups. The government for the third year in a row has taken the budget making process out from behind closed doors to Canadians across the country.
It is that openness which has contributed substantially to the favourable public reaction the government's budgets have received and it has no intention of jeopardizing that commitment in the future. The government's performance is a matter of record and it will stay that way.
I will emphasize again that any action based on suggestions of the technical committee will come only after extensive public consultation. The minister explicitly promised that in his budget speech.
I feel we should all regret the time we are spending debating a motion so lacking in merit. It is a wasted opportunity to deal with the real substance of matters before us.
The issue of taxation, both from the perspective of fairness and how it affects job creation, represents one of the most significant challenges our country faces. It deserves a debate based on substance, not political grandstanding and partisan game playing. We are committed to meeting that challenge. The action we have taken in three budgets proves that. It also proves that we are not beholden to any particular interest as the motion may imply. Again, let us look at the facts.
In our three budgets, personal income tax rates have not been increased at all. However we have taken real action affecting the corporate sector, putting the lie to the implicit suggestions in the hon. member's motion and his discussion. This action was carefully considered with respect to the corporate sector. We fully understand the consequences that higher corporate taxes have upon business investment and the ability of the private sector to create the jobs Canadians need. We have moved carefully, acting only where we could achieve real improvements, fairness and efficacy in the tax system.
We have acted without fear. This includes measures such as higher rates for the large corporation tax and the corporate surtax and reduced deductions for meals and entertainment, reducing business subsidies. Any suggestion that we are afraid to act with respect to the business and corporate sector where action is
warranted, fair, reasonable and helpful, is simply wrong. The record shows otherwise.
There are some, and perhaps the hon. member opposite is among them, who would prefer a truly punitive tax regime for business. It is interesting that he only suggests that in regard to Canada. In the province of Quebec other things are said about tax havens and lower corporate rates to attract investment, but it is here in the House that he says: "No, no, that is not on". He and his colleagues try to play with numbers to suggest that Canadian business gets an unfair preference in the tax system.
The fact is, and he knows it, that income taxes represent only a portion of the total tax bill. When all taxes are taken into account, income taxes, corporate income taxes, capital taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, corporations pay about two-thirds of their before tax profits in taxes. Is that too much or is it still not enough? That is a question which must always be examined as we look at the mix of tax revenues along with the structure of the tax system. That is what this government will continue to do.
The technical committee on business taxation is a part of that process. Its findings should help spur informed intelligent debate, what every member of the House wants to take place, the sort of debate that today's motion does nothing but try to undermine.
I have no qualms in urging the House to dismiss the motion.