Mr. Speaker, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-43, a bill which I believe will have profound effects of my community of Dartmouth.
This bill will convert Revenue Canada, a government department accountable to parliament through a minister, to a separate agency with authority which for most other departments and agencies is vested in Treasury Board and the Public Service Commission.
This to me is another example of this government's determination to privatize public services. We have seen the Department of Transport privatize airport services, we have seen the privatization of ports, of services in our military, of training, of postal services. The government now wants to privatize the collection of our taxes.
Generally speaking I reject the notion that the private sector is somehow better than the public sector. There is no proof to that contention and it just does not make much sense to me.
Recently I had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the workers currently in Revenue Canada who represent the union of taxation workers. They were in my office in Dartmouth last week. They presented me with some material which was quite disturbing and very educating on this issue. I am a firm believer that many of my best ideas I hear from my constituents and I would like to put some of this background material on the record:
When the notion of the Canada customs and revenue agency was first mentioned in the 1996 Speech from the Throne, it was presented as a cost effective, more efficient vehicle for improving service to the public. With the primary mandate to assume tax administration and collection functions from provincial and municipal governments, it was also touted as a means of strengthening the Canadian federation and contributing to national unity.
We submit that the events have overtaken the agency concept to the point that it fails to meet its stated objectives. The agency cannot now be justified on the basis of either bureaucratic efficiency or cost effectiveness. Its original business plan is in tatters. Its supporting arguments are riddled with contradictions, misstatements of fact and flimsy rationalization. The concept of the Canada customs and revenue agency is bad policy and should be stopped before it starts.
Their document continues to discuss how the original idea for the agency was to implement the HST across Canada.
I know about the public attitude to the HST, which people in Dartmouth still call the BST with a heavy emphasis on the BS. The size of the 1998 Nova Scotia Liberal caucus shows strongly how Nova Scotians feel about this tax.
However, the fact that there is no mood for expansion of this tax in this country, nor is there a single agreement with any other province for the implementation of this mother of all taxation agencies, shows how far the government has misread the country on the question surrounding Bill C-43.
Why is the government doing it? I think it just likes to privatize. It thinks it pleases its business friends. However, in this case even that call seems to be the wrong one.
Going back to the same document, I quote:
The business community was supposed to be the biggest beneficiary of the new Agency. However, doubtless to the dismay of the Agency's bureaucratic backers, the response has been ambivalent. Small business organizations—such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business—are particularly leery of the massive, centralized power the Agency would possess.
A full 40 per cent of business respondents to a Public Policy Forum study, commissioned by Revenue Canada, saw no advantage to the Agency. More than two-thirds thought it would either increase or maintain their costs of dealing with the Department as currently structured!
The administration of tax, an ancient right which has historically led to events such as the Magna Carta and the American revolution, will be hidden away in a separate agency which a minister will be responsible for sort of. After all, he does not run the agency and does not manage it on a day to day basis, so his accountability will be indirect.
It is bad enough to have witnessed the solicitor general recently covering for the Prime Minister about APEC, but if Bill C-43 passes we will see the Minister of National Revenue covering for an agency which is run by a board of directors that he does not even select.
Parliamentary democracy is based on ministerial accountability to parliament. However, with the Liberals' obsession to grab more power another principle is expendable. If this bill is passed it will be five years before this House will look at it again. A lot can go wrong in five years.
The people of Nova Scotia rejected the government in a rather absolute fashion in the last election and one of their main concerns was the HST. The fact that the government would bring in this bill, partly based on the theory that the HST will become a reality in all provinces, suggests that this bill is fatally flawed from its conception.
There are other very sneaky parts to this bill which must be mentioned and must be put into context with other power-grabbing Liberal policies.
This new agency will have the power—in fact one could see this as a responsibility—to impose user fees on Canadians who use tax services. They could start charging us a user fee to obey the law and pay our taxes. This is a ridiculous notion. It is also a mean notion.
This Liberal government did away with our universal safety net when it abolished the Canada assistance act. As a result of this action and the deliberate underfunding of health, post-secondary education and social assistance transfers to the provincial governments, means testing has become an increasing fact of life for the increasing multitude of poor in our country. To be eligible for many provincial programs, catastrophic prescription drug programs, student bursaries and some welfare services, the applicant must produce their tax records from the previous year.
It may come as a shock to the cabinet, which seems to see the world through corporate eyes, but poor people do not have accountants. One of the few things Canadians can still get from their federal government without charge is their tax assessment from the previous year. They just go into the office, show their SIN card and great public service employees give them great service. They then can go to their underfunded provincial programs to receive basic services.
I believe that under the new agency proposed in Bill C-43 poor Canadians will be asked to pay for their tax records, a charge some will be unable to pay. This will place their access to other programs at risk and make life even more difficult for them and their families.
The reality of the Liberal government is that it believes Canadians are best served by quiet cabinet orders, by a contracted out public service with no regard to actual service to the public. That is what Bill C-43 is all about.
The overall power grab is further seen by yanking the chain on independent and well-loved agencies like the CBC and the NFB, placing them under direct cabinet control as proposed in Bill C-44.
I will candidly say that Bill C-43 is flawed, as the overall thrust of this government is flawed. On behalf of the thousands of citizens and their families in my riding who work for Revenue Canada I will oppose this bill. I believe it is a wrong-headed bill. I would like to see it defeated.