I hear a member opposite speaking of a gallbladder attack. I am not certain whether it has that level of medical effect but it evokes the same level of emotion that a letter of a death of a close relative would. That is the level of impact.
When one receives a letter from Revenue Canada there is the whole idea that as an individual citizen or as the owner of a small business they will be taking on this huge omnipotent force which ultimately has all the levers. It is extremely frightening to Canadians.
There is a fear that this agency will become Godzilla the tax collector and that it will have greater force and less political accountability, which is quite frightening.
As a small business person I received one of those letters a few years ago. I spent about a year and a half defending myself against my own government. Ultimately the government said I was right and it was wrong. However, during that period I spent thousands of dollars on a tax accountant to defend myself. When I consider that, the type of situation which exists with small businesses and individuals across Canada, I fear that this agency could make it worse because we do not have the political accountability of members of this House and the minister who can effectively act as a watchdog over that type of activity and behaviour.
I would argue that while we are dealing with the agency of delivery of tax collection in Canada, we should be dealing in a more holistic way with the whole nature of taxes in Canada. I applaud the Mintz report on corporate taxation which came out two months ago and which I think has some very beneficial and constructive public policy positions that can if implemented help simplify, ultimately flatten and reduce the bureaucratic nightmare that Canadian businesses are subject to in dealing with their own government.
In terms of personal taxes we also need to similarly simplify and flatten to a certain extent tax policy in Canada because currently our tax code is too complicated. There is something fundamentally wrong with the whole concept that Canadians need to hire a tax accountant or in some cases a tax lawyer to simply deal with their own government.
I do not see this agency going a long way to achieving any of these ends. I see it as a symbolic or band-aid approach that arguably will not accomplish a whole lot. It is based on the premise that public servants cannot necessarily provide the same level of competency that a private agency might.
If we create incentives within all our public agencies or departments, incentives that recognize and reward excellence as opposed to encouraging mediocrity, i.e. if we introduce market incentives within the existing agencies, we can achieve economies without necessarily creating new agencies.
This new agency may be an indication of the government's trying to pander to this whole public sentiment that the public service does not do a good job or the public service cannot do a good job. I think that is very unfortunate.
One of the tragedies or one of the losses that we have seen in recent years is that politicians have made gratuitous attacks on public servants without really considering the ramifications of those attacks. One of the damages sustained by those types of attacks has been the low level of morale we have within our public service now. Our public service I suggest is at an all time low in terms of morale. We simply cannot accept that there are not people who want to work within government departments and to succeed, to excel, to be proud of what they do and to provide the levels of service to their country that are important and which in the past have been encouraged. We can make many of the changes necessary within the existing department without creating this new agency.
The provinces are not really interested in having a new agency.
Ontario is looking at increased powers for collecting its own taxes.
The board of management will be just another bureaucratic layer which will add additional costs. We see too much power concentrated in one agency which will have less accountability to parliament and to the minister. The power of authority or information on individual Canadians is going to be extremely concentrated. Again, this agency will be less accountable to parliament than a department and the minister will not be involved in any day to day functioning of the department.
We see current employees who will lose existing rights, including job security and the right to bargain on staffing matters. Keep in mind that there will only be a two year job guarantee and we are effectively dealing with, I understand, about 25% of the public service.
We have to take a look at whether or not this agency would in fact not be more flexible than Revenue Canada, but less flexible in working with other government departments, including the finance department, and the provinces. Because of the need that we have in this country for holistic tax reform, perhaps this is simply not the time we should be creating a separate agency. In fact we need more federal-provincial co-operation, not just on tax enforcement, but on overall tax policy. We need more co-operation between the Department of Finance and Revenue Canada and the provinces.
To take away the political element of that I think would be a huge mistake at a time when we have an unprecedented need for forward thinking tax reform.
Again, I think the government is focusing on reforming tax enforcement. Yes, there are reforms that are necessary. Those reforms need to provide greater accountability, not less accountability. In our opinion, this legislation and this new agency would provide less accountability. Therefore it may be arguably a step in the wrong direction.
Secondly, it may actually increase the barriers to co-operation between the provinces and the federal government and the Department of Finance to effect change and develop a holistic approach to tax policy which will result in a fairer, flatter tax policy which will be more conducive to economic growth and the success of Canadians in the global market.
It was with great pleasure that I heard my hon. colleague from the Reform Party today speaking of a declaration of taxpayer rights or a taxpayer bill of rights. I thought for a moment it was Trent Lott speaking or Newt Gingrich with darker hair. I believe that the hon. member is happy with that comparison.
But the hon. member does strike a chord in terms of the importance of our tax policy in Canada and our tax enforcement practices being less intrusive and more respectful of Canadians.
I was one of those Canadians who did receive one of those tax audit letters one day. My only crime at the age of 22 was operating a small business that employed young Canadians. Ultimately the government agreed with me, but it took me almost two years and thousands of dollars to a tax accountant to defend myself against my own government.
I agree with my hon. colleague from the Reform Party. I would bring to his attention the declaration of taxpayer rights which was part of the work done by a former member of this House and former cabinet minister, Perrin Beatty, who is a forward thinking member of the Progressive Conservative Party. He also saw the need and in fact had some results in improving the level of accountability.
We are talking about issues of privacy and confidentiality, impartiality, courtesy and consideration, the presumption of innocence, and impartial hearings before payment; all of those types of issues.
We have made progress in the past and we have to continue working to make progress in the future on these types of issues.
I do not see Bill C-43 and this new agency as necessarily being conducive to this process. We need to ensure that we do not separate the political will that is necessary to effect change in this very important matter from a logistical body that enforces tax policy in Canada. There is a very dangerous separation that may result in less ability for elected members of the House or the minister to effect change, to control and to have the ability to govern things like abuse of power by Revenue Canada agents and that sort of thing.
It is great to hear the support of members opposite for consumption taxes. We wish they had been more vocal in their support of consumption taxes in 1993 when the Conservative government replaced the counter-productive manufacturers sales tax with the GST, which ultimately was the right tax at that time. It has demonstrated to be a fairer tax than many of the income taxes and other taxes that this government seems comfortable with.
I should not criticize the government for having adopted sound Conservative polices. The only thing worse than it having shamelessly taken those policies from the previous government would have been if it had implemented its own. The consequences of those would have been far more egregious and detrimental to Canadians. I am making a muted criticism of the government for taking our policies, but I want to commend it on its judgment for having done so. It took this government longer to learn and absorb the benefits of sound economic policy. Perhaps it did not catch on at the time of the 1993 election. However, it has since accepted those measures, including free trade and the GST.
I ask the minister to work very hard to implement many of the recommendations of the Mintz report on business taxation. On the personal tax side we need similar reforms that simplify and flatten our tax code. I hope we devote our energies to that type of approach and to those types of very important public policy initiatives and less time on bureaucratic window dressing changes that ultimately will result in King John Inc., but will not necessarily make any difference in the way tax policies are enforced or implemented, which may result in even larger problems in the future.