Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-43 to create the new Canada customs and revenue agency.
Before I start, I know I will probably not have enough time to finish my remarks. I hope to have the opportunity to continue when we next examine this bill.
I would begin by congratulating my colleague, the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, for his good work. I heard his speech this morning, in which he presented a whole series of arguments. I felt the agency served some purpose, but was not relevant because a department of revenue already exists. My colleague's arguments were well founded.
Once again, the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles has shown how attuned he is to his constituents and to the groups concerned by these issues.
First, let us talk of the government's objectives in the 1996 throne speech. The first objective was to provide programs and services more effectively and cost efficiently through greater autonomy and flexibility. I want to focus on the words “more effectively and cost efficiently”. I think everyone agrees on “cost efficiently”. The more it brings in, the more it is in the public interest.
However, I have a few questions about the “more effectively”. The understanding is more effectively than at present. At the present time, those responsible for tax collection are employees of Revenue and Customs, in other words public servants. I am told there are about 18,000. There is a message in this. Is it being implied that the 18,000 people assigned to taxation are not efficient and are not doing their job properly so that it will be cost-effective? The government has presented this as its first objective.
This is not surprising, when one realizes that the tendency within this government is a desire to privatize. This is something to be considered per se, but what is involved is a service that is already provided. It is not a new service, but one already being provided. The agency will not be totally privatized, but it will not be covered by the legislation which governs, and will continue to govern, all other public servants at the federal level.
I do not wish to worry people needlessly. I do not even need to do so, anyway, because I have seen a letter to the hon. member for Rivière-des-Milles-Îles by the taxation employees' union. They are all worried about this. They wonder what might happen to them. Behind it all lies the fear of being shunted aside. Perhaps a number of them may be hired again by the new agency, but they do need reassurance.
The second was to improve services—and who could be against that—and to reduce the cost of administering revenue and compliance by working in conjunction with the provinces in order to eliminate duplication and overlap. The key words in this are “working in conjunction with the provinces”. The concept of “co-operation” is understood. Generally, the purpose is harmonization.
“Working in co-operation” is all very fine-sounding and is a good objective as far as it goes. But what is actually happening? When we check with each of the provinces, not just Quebec, they say they are not in agreement and that, before they sign on, they will want to give it some thought because they are not at all sure this is a good thing. How can the government get away with saying in the throne speech that it will be done in co-operation with the provinces, when the provinces are not in fact interested in working together in this context, since they are apparently going to lose their powers, especially Quebec, because Quebec has its own revenue ministry. Moreover, it is the only province that does, having had one for a very long time. In this regard, Quebec wants to keep its powers and its responsibilities.
A third objective was mentioned, which we no longer hear anything about today, but which was in the throne speech: “Strengthen the federation's effectiveness and enhance national unity by making the agency an organization responsible for providing Canadians with federal and provincial services”.
When this was first announced, it obviously resulted in some discussion here in the House and elsewhere. We in the Bloc Quebecois, and Quebeckers in general, reacted back then, and we feel no differently now. Except that we notice that the government members no longer mention this objective. But once bitten, twice shy. Just because the government no longer mentions this third objective from the throne speech does not mean it is no longer guided by it. These were statements of principle, the government's intentions and policies until the next throne speech.
This objective no doubt remains. In my opinion, it is part of the current Liberal government's plan A, because, while it is a gentle approach and not a stick, it remains a tendency of the current federal government, which tries to meddle in provincial matters and increasingly expand its control over them.
But with the creation of this agency, it is not doing so directly, but indirectly, rather as it did with the millennium scholarships. Members remember the famous millennium scholarship fund. The federal government could not do it directly, so it set up a private foundation, an agency of sorts, to do indirectly what it could not do directly.
I am no lawyer, but I know the public is discouraged from indirectly contravening legal provisions. The same is not true for the government. It sets up agencies, it takes an indirect and convoluted approach to achieve its ends. Even though it is no longer raising the issue of so called national unity, the federal government, in the end, wants to collect taxes and take over the mechanisms that bring in new revenues with an independent agency.
I am a sovereignist. I do not hide the fact. Neither do the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles or the members of the Bloc. However, we are still in the federal system. The people in the other parties, whom I respect, have another opinion. They are federalists and want to stay within the federal system. They often consult the Constitution. I too have read it. We know about the Constitution.
I also know its history and the facts surrounding it. In 1867, when Canada's Constitution was drafted and passed, those who have studied it will recall that the federal government did not collect taxes from either individuals or companies. The provincial governments did. It was during the two world wars—the 1914-18 one and the 1939-45 one—that the federal government asked the provincial governments, in the light of the exceptional circumstances, to allow it to collect income tax.
Subsequently, having tasted the pleasure of collecting taxes, the government wanted to continue. Ontario finally agreed, but Mr. Duplessis, who was then Premier of Quebec, created his own department of revenue. That is the history of the two tax returns: one for the federal government and one for Quebec. They go back to that time. However, I will have the opportunity—