Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House today to speak to the opposition motion condemning the establishment of a technical committee by the Minister of Finance to examine business taxation. We are deploring the fact that this committee is comprised of members who are both judge and judged with regard to business tax reform, and we feel that the minister should set up a joint committee of experts and parliamentarians instead.
Why put such a motion forward? We are obviously not against tax reform. The Bloc Quebecois has been advocating reform for a long time and we think it is essential, especially since it is being requested from all parts. In our ridings, people ask us: "Are businesses paying their share of taxes at present? Could adjustments not be made to increase their efficiency as far as job creation is concerned?" The problem with the government's action in this regard is that it is putting the cart before the horse. Taxation is a tool, not a goal in itself. In my opinion, any tax measure should reflect political will. It is not simply a juggling game.
Let me give you an example: the scientific research and experimental development tax credit. This is an interesting example in that it has a positive impact on productivity. But at the same time, as it is being implemented and becoming operational, it is becoming obvious that it can also have negative impacts in terms of a decline in employment for unskilled workers.
Choices need to be made that are not technical but rather political in nature, and I think that, by having only legal, accounting and tax experts sit on this committee, the minister is limiting the scope of the debate, thereby denying the people of Quebec and Canada the real debate they may have wanted to have on this issue.
Political consideration should be given to this beforehand and, to do this, I think that two other groups of people should be represented on this committee. I am referring to parliamentarians, individuals who can rightly claim to represent the people, who can convey to the committee suggestions made by citizens from all walks of life.
Someone in my riding came up with this idea: Would it not be possible to tax robots-advanced technology if you will-in such way that productivity gains thus achieved could benefit the workers who may have been displaced when advanced technology was introduced? Parliamentarians are the ones who can raise such arguments. It is certainly not tax experts who know about fiscal issues, who have past experience, who are often there to defend the way things were done, and who are often responsible for the complexity of the current system. Above all, people want transparency in the tax reform process.
Even if we end up with the best tax system in the world, we will have missed the boat if people do not feel that it is a fair system. To some extent, this is what will happen with the committee that is being set up by the minister. Even with the best possible recommendations, the minister will have a hard time preserving his credibility since no parliamentarians and no experts from other fields will sit on that committee.
Indeed, when reviewing a tax related issue, why not also have experts from the employment sector? These people could offer a different perspective than that provided by tax experts and accountants. As well, we could have legal experts whose experience is totally different. In Quebec, such an exercise is currently taking place in the social assistance sector. This process allows us to get different ideas, different visions on how to deal with the issues.
The federal government's way of doing things is certainly very different from that of the Quebec government. In Quebec, all the stakeholders in the social and economic sectors are sitting together to decide what should be done. Technical committees could eventually be set up following that round table, and that would be a good thing. But the federal government has it all backwards: it creates a technical committee first, and then it will set up a consultation process. This does not seem appropriate, given the mandate that the committee gave itself.
Let us not forget that this committee is there to examine how the tax system could help promote job creation and economic growth, and how the system could be made simpler and more equitable. Should the committee be made up of tax experts who helped develop the current system? Are these people the ones most able to look at the issues from the perspective of ordinary citizens? I feel we could use their expertise, but after the first stage, we ought to consult to find out what people really have in mind in connection with these various elements.
I also think that this technical stage ought to follow on a political debate on what the government's priorities are. What its objectives are with respect to the employment of workers, or in other words, what levels of unemployment the government would be prepared to set as a target to be attained in order to decrease unemployment and make better use of human resources. Is the government prepared to make choices on criteria for assessing the efficacy of its government, or of Canadian society, that are based on something other than gross domestic product or export figures? Is the government prepared to say that one of the criteria it will assess its efficiency against is the use made of the work force?
Is there a vision of development which goes beyond mere market forces to ensure that people and places are being properly utilized? There is a direct link between this and taxation.
If we want to see Canada develop, to see each region develop independently, there must be taxation measures relating to this. There must be political choices behind it. A technical committee is not the way to go to meet that objective. In fact, it will tend to duplicate what has been done before.
In conclusion, having taken the step of finding what Quebecers and Canadians want through political debate, we can then make a technical examination of how to arrange things so as to do away with the famous problem of tax havens. Might there not be a way to revise taxation agreements to accomplish this? As far as trusts and foreign assets are concerned, could not the underlying principle be adopted, promptly, that the income of Canadian citizens earned anywhere in the world would be the figure considered for taxation purposes, in order to be sure that taxes are paid on all earnings?
As for tax expenditure accounts, for example investment credits, the $500,000 capital gains exemption, the preferential rate for small business, deferred taxes, all of these must be looked at from the employment aspect. That is what the young people of Quebec
have told us, pointing out that the entire taxation issue must be looked at to ensure that it guarantees their future.
This requires us to go beyond the confines of the technical committee. There must be a political debate. I feel that the government needs to reverse its present position and to ensure that those on the committee will be joined by parliamentarians, by other experts, so that the task can get finished as expeditiously as possible, and so that a subsequent budget may really contain tax measures with more bite than this last insipid budget did.