Madam Speaker, the revenue agency act is another word for privatization affecting 40,000 employees at a time when the morale is low already for a large number of employees being affected by the pay equity issue. The Liberal government is refusing to bring justice to the men and women within the Public Service Alliance, but it made a promise in 1993 that it would honour the tribunal decision.
This bill is long awaited enabling legislation required to convert Revenue Canada from a government department into an arm's length special operating agency. 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. However, events have overtaken the agency to the point that it fails to meet all its stated objectives. It cannot now be justified on a basis of either bureaucratic efficiency or cost effectiveness.
Its supporting arguments are riddled with contradictions, misstatements of fact and flimsy rationalization. The concept of the Canada customs and revenue agency is bad public policy and should be stopped before it starts. The agency will be a mega-person, extending Ottawa's reach down into our community and our life.
It proposes to administer everything from provincial sales taxes to gasoline taxes and liquor taxes. Its vision would see a mega-taxperson that would offer services to municipalities. Do we really want Ottawa involved in our property taxes? Do we really want to put this much power into one government agency? Of course not. However left unchecked this may very well happen.
The agency will reduce accountability to the public and to parliament. Revenue Canada, as presently structured, is fully accountable to parliament and the taxpaying public through the Minister of National Revenue. The department's policies, programs and activities are open to daily scrutiny during the House of Commons question period.
On the other hand, the Canada customs and revenue agency poses a challenge to parliamentarians as guardians of the public trust and interest. Although its promoters repeatedly stress that the new agency would be fully accountable to our elected representatives, this is misleading at best and deceitful at worst.
To gauge the commitment of the agency's promoters to parliamentary oversight, one need look no further than the senior bureaucrats April 1997 progress report. This document brazenly suggested exempting the agency's operations from fundamental principle of ministerial accountability to the House of Commons. The elitist and anti-democratic proposal was withdrawn in the face of furious opposition.
The agency will face less scrutiny from parliament than is now the case. The auditor general has expressed his concerns over protection of the public interest. An agency will likely be less concerned than a fully accountable government department in responding to questions or concerns raised by individual MPs on behalf of the public.
As an arm's length separate employer the agency would find it easier to stonewall parliament while at the same time providing a pretext for the minister of the day to shift the focus of accountability to the top agency bureaucrat, the commissioner.
The agency's enabling legislation would permit a full parliamentary review only five years after it has begun operation. A lot can go very wrong over such a broad expanse of time.
The agency could jeopardize the public's personal privacy. We live in an electronic world where more and more information about us and our families is readily bought and sold by private sector organizations, from credit card companies to charities to consumer goods companies.
Should the agency meet its stated objectives, an incredible amount of personal and financial information would be concentrated in one institution.
The agency will renew Ottawa's effort to harmonize the GST and provincial sales taxes beyond the maritimes. Originally the CCRA was conceived as a bureaucratic blunt instrument to help government keep its 1993 election promise to abolish the GST. The agency was supposed to enable Ottawa to harmonize the unpopular GST with provincial sales taxes across the country. I think it is important that we talk about the harmonization of the GST and the PST. We ended up with a terrible sales tax in New Brunswick with the HST. We now have a 15% tax on electricity, a 15% tax on heating oil and a 15% tax on children's clothing. It was an increase of 8%. That is what we got with harmonization.
It is important to point that out. It came with the harmonization of the taxes. In New Brunswick we pay huge taxes on children's clothing, on diapers, on electricity and on heating oil. The people being hit with increased taxes are the same ones being hit with toll highways at home. They have lost all sorts of income, for having lost their jobs, among other reasons.
There are also cuts in the employment centres, jobs that have been lost, employment insurance cheques that have vanished or been halved. Our taxes are now even higher, because the Liberal government refused to keep its promise to eliminate the GST.
The agency has also failed to impress small and big business. The business community, both small and large, was supposed to be the biggest beneficiary of the new agency. 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% 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.
Actually, the agency will likely have to turn to user fees in order to deliver on its promise of cost savings. As planned, the agency would deliver the bulk of its costs by harmonizing the GST and the PST and by taking over provincial and municipal tax administration. But neither seems to be in the cards. So what is likely to happen?
One scenario would see an over-ambitious agency move to trim costs by reducing staff and services to the public. I think we have to look at that.
We know that, with an agency, the service will not improve. That has been proven in many areas. It is also a reason for cutting more jobs. The government finds reasons for cutting, and it is always the low person on the totem pole whose job is lost.
A more probable direction would see the imposition of user fees. User fees are something we see more and more of everywhere. Again, the one at the bottom with the lowest income has to pay all the user fees, be they to Revenue Canada, National Parks, trying to get a driver's licence or a medicare card. There are more and more fees and more and more people who cannot afford them.
As proposed, the agency would be empowered to set user fees for services that provide a specific benefit to service recipients. This immense loophole could see both individuals and small businesses paying additional fees for the privilege of paying their taxes.
No less a person than the auditor general has expressed his concern over the proposed agency's accountability. Denis Desautels asked in his December 1997 report to parliament: “How will Canadians and parliamentarians have assurances that the public interest is protected?” He was not able to get an answer to that question.
I want to conclude by saying that I think going to an agency is terrible for Revenue Canada. Perhaps for Parks Canada it would be all right. It is a way for government to cut and to bring down salaries. It is another word for privatization.
We must be concerned about these issues. We must understand the government has a hidden agenda. This has to stop.