Mr. Speaker, as I look through Bill C-43, there are a few things that concern me.
I noticed in clauses 22, 25 and 26, the deal with the appointment of the chair and the commissioner of the agency, that they are going to be appointed at the pleasure of the government. We are dealing here with tax collection, something that is very serious and something that perhaps could be construed to be akin to a quasi-judicial agency.
With the powers that are going to be conferred on the commissioner and because of his or her role as an independent civil servant to collect taxes on behalf of the government, his or her independence must be assured. Yet we find that he or she is not being appointed on good behaviour but is being appointed at the pleasure of the government. Therefore, if he or she does not squeeze enough taxes out of Canadians, the government can say “You are out of here. We are going to get somebody else to do the job because we feel that you are not collecting enough”.
The appointment is at pleasure. I ask the government to come forward and tell us why it does not make this appointment on good behaviour. It seems to me that would be much more important. If it were on the basis of good behaviour, then it would at least provide some credibility that this agency was not going to be interfered with by the government, but perhaps it will be.
Turning to clause 38, it reads:
The Commissioner must keep the Minister informed of any matter that could affect public policy or that could materially affect public finances, and any other matter that the Minister considers necessary.
I draw members' attention to “affect public finances”. I refer back to an issue that was raised by the auditor general two or three years ago. It was called the family trust fiasco where one ruling by the Department of National Revenue under a very questionable situation cost the taxpayer $2 billion. To me, that would certainly fall under materially affecting the public finances.
When the public accounts committee had hearings on that fiasco, the deputy minister assured us under oath that there was absolutely no political involvement in the granting of that tax break on that particular family trust. It was one particular issue, one particular taxpayer who got a $2 billion tax break under the most questionable of circumstances one day before Christmas. It was the best Christmas present he ever had.
The whole concept is that there be no political involvement in granting tax breaks to Canadians and that the act be applied fairly, appropriately and properly to every Canadian. Now we find the commissioner is obligated to get the political masters involved. He must keep the minister informed on matters that could materially affect the public finances. Under this clause the politicians in this House who give direction to the commissioner now have the authority to direct to the commissioner whether or not they will grant these types of tax breaks. Political shenanigans are starting to go on in this bill.
Let us look at clause 33. This is where it gets kind of convoluted and we have to wonder why the government is creating this agency. While the agency is supposed to be at arm's length, everything else is being treated as if the agency were a civil service.
A board of 15 people is being created. It seems to be patronage heaven because the members will have nothing whatsoever to do regarding taxation and collection. The only thing they have to do is run the agency. Clause 33 states:
The Board may advise the Minister on matters that relate to the general administration and enforcement of the program legislation.
The next clause specifically states that the board cannot tell the commissioner how to handle the enforcement of program legislation. The commissioner will be acting on his own, the board is prohibited from telling him how to do his job of enforcement of taxes, yet the board is obligated to talk to the minister on behalf of the commissioner. It seems this is a kind of make work project for the board to get it involved somehow without giving it any teeth to act at arm's length from the government. We see in clause 38 that the government wants to keep that to itself. That is why I have a problem with the bill.
I have to concur with the government on clause 92(5) regarding severance pay. Because the employees are being moved en masse from the Department of National Revenue to the agency and as far as they are concerned there will be absolutely no interruption in employment, they will not be granted severance pay under their collective agreement. Granting severance pay would amount to several hundred million dollars. I am glad to see it is being deferred until the employees retire.
I raised this issue with Nav Canada, which was a privatization a little more at arm's length than this agency. There were people who worked for the Department of Transport one day and who on the following day went to the same job with the same desk, the same telephone, the same boss, the same everything except that the letterhead had changed to Nav Canada. They picked up $200 million in severance pay. I was absolutely shocked that those employees were given $200 million.
At committee I said to Mr. Daryl Bean, the president of the union, that it was preposterous for the taxpayer to be expected to shell out $200 million for a letterhead change. He answered that that was the agreement. And not only that, if people's employment were not severed until their retirement day, when they retired they would get their severance pay.
In the private sector there is nobody who can afford to pay severance pay to every employee who sticks around until retirement age. Yet we as the Government of Canada have deemed it in their sense, not common sense, to grant that benefit to employees. The taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars, $200 million for NavCan alone.
Fortunately, and I will give the government credit on this issue, it has deferred the payment of severance pay until these people retire rather than paying a bonus to them the day the letterhead changed.
The agency is smoke and mirrors. The government wants to move it off arm's length because it did not like the fiasco of the GST and did not want to repeat it and be able to blame somebody else. It is not our fault, it's their fault that they are squeezing taxes out of everyone.
I think there are some serious flaws in this bill, serious flaws in the whole philosophy of having an agency at arm's length collecting taxes on behalf of the government. The government has to be responsible to the taxpayers. There is a very close link between the taxes paid by the people who are governed and the taxes collected by those who want to govern. That link is broken, as we see definitely on the reserves of the country where the people who lead, manage and govern their native reserves have no link with those they derive their revenue from. The people on reserves are untaxed. There is no linkage between those people who want to govern the reserve, collecting taxes from those they are to govern and if we break that link here with ourselves, it is very serious indeed.
I would be quite happy to see the government withdraw this piece of legislation and move on to something a lot more important.