Mr. Speaker, as members will recall, on June 4, 1998, one week before the summer recess, the Minister of Revenue tabled Bill C-43 to establish the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
This bill stems from the Speech from the Throne delivered in February 1996, when the government announced its intention to set up a national revenue recovery agency. Initially, this agency will essentially be the existing Department of Revenue turned into an agency operating almost at arm's length from the government, whose mandate will be to negotiate with the interested provinces and municipalities an arrangement for the collection of all taxes in Canada.
Do the members of this House realize that the bill before us basically provides for two things? First, concentrating under one single organization the collection of all federal, provincial or municipal taxes. While there is no mention of it in here, it is very clear that school taxes, gasoline taxes and liquor taxes may also be administered by this agency.
So, the first point to consider is the centralization of all tax collection operations in the hands of a single organization. The second different but equally important point we must bear in mind is the creation of an agency.
This means that the Minister of Revenue, who has been responsible so far for what was going on in his department, will now devolve to a quasi-independent agency the responsibility to collect all taxes.
In this House, when we question a minister about the actions of a government agency, the minister will often hide behind the fact that the agency is independent, competent, self-regulated, and thus enjoys his or her full confidence. In the end, we do not get an answer.
The fact is that this House, which is made up of democratically and individually elected members, can no longer get a minister to account for an agency from which he is removing himself. This is precisely the situation that is proposed in the bill, with the creation of an agency.
It is one thing to centralize the collection of taxes in the hands of a single organization, so as to avoid duplication and reduce costs. Incidentally, Quebec's Department of Revenue—Quebec being the only Canadian province to have its own revenue department—is already collecting the GST for the federal government. This, of course, reduces costs, since the GST is collected at the same time as the Quebec sales tax.
However, while we may achieve economies of scale by concentrating tax collection in the hands of a single organization, to give that responsibility to an agency is a very different matter and one that should be considered much more carefully.
With an agency, the minister is not involved in the ongoing operations of the organization. Take, for example, the CRTC and various other federal agencies. Whenever something happens with these organizations, the minister tells the House “This agency, this entity, can self-regulate. It has investigative tools. In short, it will ensure transparency”. But that transparency is never there.
I will mention two cases where there were problems. One is the Somalia inquiry. A commission was set up and was going to take care of everything. Yet, as we know, in the end the commissioners themselves said they had not been able to find the whole truth, as we wanted them to do.
Then there was the tainted blood issue and the Krever commission. I clearly remember asking a question in this House to the then Minister of Health, who replied gently and kindly “The issue is in the hands of the commission. The commission will get to the bottom of this”. As we now know, the commission was never able to get to the bottom of the issue.
Here, the government wants to create an agency that will once again operate at arm's length from the minister, with the result that, when asked about it, the minister will simply say “The agency is looking after all this”. In my opinion, we must oppose the establishment of such an agency.
Let us now go back to the issue of concentrating the collection of all our taxes in the hands of a single organization.
It is true that, on the face of it, this should result in savings. If this is the case, why not give the Quebec Minister of Revenue the responsibility for collecting all taxes in Quebec? The Quebec Minister of Revenue would then, as he already does with the GST, give the money to the federal revenue minister. Already, this would result in significant savings.
Where I start not being able to follow is when a body is created which would collect taxes not only at the federal level, not only at the level of Quebec or the provinces, but also at the municipal level, even the school board level, taxes on alcohol, on cigarettes, on gasoline. In short, it would be a monster with tentacles reaching everywhere, up to and including the taxpayer's pockets, and worse still, able to keep track of what taxpayers are doing.
Here we no longer have just a body for collecting taxes, but one that also collects information, a lot of information, collective and individual, from sea to sea.
There is a danger here. I appeal to this House to consider the fact that, even if it were economically advantageous to give one single body the right to collect everything considered taxes, both direct and indirect, and any other kind as well, would it be socially acceptable to allow a single body like this one to have all this information concentrated in one place?
I say no. When one body has powers this wide, economic considerations can no longer apply. The consideration that must take precedence is respect of the individual, and of privacy.
Second, the very fact that the minister hands over to an agency powers that are allocated to him by the law is, to my mind, an unacceptable contradiction. An agency cannot be allowed into the pockets of taxpayers to collect taxes which have been determined by this House. This is the minister's responsibility, and one he cannot easily slough off.
In the minute remaining to me, I would like to point out that 20% of federal public servants work for Revenue Canada at the present time. It is my impression that the secret intention, the hidden agenda behind all this is to put 20% of federal employees into an agency where they will no longer be covered by the Public Service Employment Act. This is totally unacceptable. If that is the hidden desire of the government, it is totally evil.
I understand that my time is up, and I thank you for your attention. I hope the House will dump this bill.