moved:
That this House deplores the fact that the technical committee set up by the Minister of Finance to analyse business taxation is comprised of members who are both judge and judged with regard to business tax reform; and that, this being so, the Minister of Finance should set up a joint committee of experts and parliamentarians to examine business taxation in an impartial manner according to an open and transparent process.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to open this official opposition day on the vital matter of reforming the taxation system, business taxation in particular.
Tax reform is necessary for several reasons. The entire taxation system must be re-examined, but I shall restrict my address to four reasons directly connected to the Bloc Quebecois' three years of reflection on this matter.
The first reason is that there has been no thorough review of the Canadian taxation system for close to 30 years. The last commission to seriously address in depth tax reform was the Carter commission, in 1967. Since then, however, some measures have been added, others deleted and still others modified. In short, since that time we have had no clear idea of what is going on.
The second reason is that the Canadian tax system is extremely complex-and we in the official opposition are not the only ones saying this, everyone is, including representatives of other countries. It is unwieldy to administer, and in some ways encourages two major problems: first, the underground economy, and the lack of control over it-and complexity equals absence of control-and second, it can even encourage, through taxation agreements with certain countries considered to be tax havens, tax evasion and capital being drained out of the country.
The third reason to reform the Canadian tax system is its numerous loopholes, which are to the advantage of those with the highest incomes, the major Canadian corporations in particular. They can afford to hire acknowledged tax specialists in order to take advantage of such loopholes and to avoid paying what they should to Revenue Canada.
Every time corporations or high income individuals do not pay what they should to Revenue Canada, the ones who do end up paying in the end are all the individual taxpayers in Quebec and in Canada.
And now for the fourth reason. Taxpayers throughout Quebec and Canada are asking us to reform taxation. They cannot abide the fact that the Minister of Finance is forever eliminating essential tools and that he is leaving out a whole chunk of the reality of Canadian public finances. Of only for that reason, if only because Quebecers and Canadians are asking the government for reform-the bosses are calling for tax reform-I think it should be done.
There is perhaps a fifth reason as well. We see that the Americans, as we look about to see what is happening elsewhere in the world, have been working at modernizing their tax system since the early 1980s. They went at it, because they could see the American system was becoming increasingly complex, more easily defrauded and more loopholed. They started the job by imposing a minimum tax on corporate revenues. Now they are analyzing the flat tax.
I am not saying this is the solution, but at least they are looking at viable alternatives. The Americans are doing it, but not the Canadians. The French are doing it too. The day before yesterday, I listened to Mr. Chirac set a five year deadline for a reform of individual and corporate taxes, because he can see that tools previously used within a given country only and protected by its borders, when tax competition was only an idea, needed changing as well to keep up with today's globalization.
Now, tax competition is less and less an idea. Taxation has to become competitive, properly harmonized and simplified to ensure control. This is taking place throughout the world.
Five criteria guide major tax reform: simplification, performance, control, justice and fairness. This is the message we have been trying to get through to this government for two and a half years. How did the government answer? I will confess honestly-not naively, as that would be too much-that we were very happy when the Minister of Finance told us, when he brought down his last budget, that he had set up a technical committee to review the tax system. We were really very happy about that.
I even told the Minister of Finance that the representations of the Bloc Quebecois, of the official opposition, had not been in vain. You finally understood that tax reform was essential, unavoidable, if there was any real desire to put some order in public finances and to have a fair tax system in Canada. I was reading the press release announcing the setting up of the committee-
Could we, Mr. Speaker, get the attention of the government side? Sometimes, when they make an effort to listen to and understand suggestions which are made to them, things in Canada seem to get better and better.