Mr. Speaker, I would like to do a bit of reminiscing but I will try to keep it short.
I think back to when I started paying taxes in 1970 and what the tax act was like then. It is interesting to make a comparison between the forms we had to fill out then and the ones we fill out now. I began working in depth with the tax act in 1977. At that time the tax act was not too thick. We now have an act that is literally a stack. It is impossible for anyone to completely understand it.
The complexity of the act is one thing, but the question I want to direct to the member for Calgary Centre is regarding the lack of respect it has shown toward taxpayers. Back in 1977 when I started working in depth with taxpayers I found many cases where taxpayers were considered to be guilty by Revenue Canada even when the evidence was not presented. Just on Revenue Canada's say so, a letter was sent to a taxpayer saying he or she was guilty of underpaying and in some cases beyond that.
In about 1984 or 1985 the Conservative government put in tax fairness legislation which helped and was a good thing. After that time I noticed that taxpayers were given the benefit of the doubt. They were treated much more fairly overall. There was less of them being considered guilty before their case was even heard.
The GST then came in and the same Conservative government, when it put the GST in place, did not put the tax fairness legislation in place to cover the GST. With the GST we see the same type of treatment of taxpayers that I saw in 1977 as I dealt with individuals where people were treated very unfairly and harassed in many cases by the GST people.
I have now been a member of parliament for the last five years but in the last couple of years I have noticed this trend toward more harassment even in the income tax area which is of great concern.
I would like to ask the member if he sees anything in this legislation that will ensure that fair treatment of taxpayers will be protected inside this agency.