Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-43, an act to establish the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. I support the motion brought forward by my hon. colleague from Saint-Eustache—Sainte-Thérèse, who is asking the government to withdraw this pointless piece of legislation.
The government should realize that this bill to set up an agency for the collection of all taxes in Canada is dead in the water, because the underlying principle on which the establishment of this agency is based, namely the signing of administrative tax agreements with the provinces, has yet to be applied in practice.
When the bill was introduced, not a single agreement or even a letter of intent had been signed with any of the provinces. So how do you justify a bill that obviously reflects the government's wishful thinking and the centralizing vision it is trying to ram down the throats of the provinces?
This bill only reflects the centralizing vision of the Chrétien government, and we can never say often enough that, for the federal Liberals, rationalization means duplication and, ironically, harmonization means interference. Did the people in Canada and in Quebec ask for such an agency? To ask the question is to answer it.
Besides being totally out of touch with people's real needs, the government is trying, with this bill, to stretch its tentacles beyond the provincial governments to municipal and local administrations.
Moreover, what can we say about a government that delegates such a fundamental responsibility as collecting and administering taxes paid by corporate and individual taxpayers? Who will ensure that taxpayers' rights are protected? Who will ensure that personal information remains confidential?
In this age of computer information and centralization of personal and financial data, people fear for their privacy, and rightly so. The agency as proposed would have a personal and financial data bank that should be of concern to taxpayers. They should be able to expect their government to protect access to this information.
With this bill the government is abdicating its responsibilities toward taxpayers. Even though the government claims the agency will be accountable to elected representatives, the fact is this new structure would become an entity difficult to get around and to control.
It may seem advantageous for the revenue minister to hide behind the agency to avoid giving a quick answer to embarrassing questions by members of parliament, but the taxpayers and the members of the Bloc Quebecois only see further delays in answering questions and more hurdles between problems and solutions. Moreover, the revenue minister himself should be leery of this new superstructure which might be beyond his control.
I would like someone to explain where the so-called savings used to justify the new agency are going to come from. First, one further layer of bureaucracy is added in the form of an appointed management board which will require time, money and staff. Furthermore, senior executives will be entirely free to pay themselves salaries comparable to those of executives in the private sector. Finally, providing free services to provinces who want to harmonize their program with the federal income tax program will automatically bring an increase and certainly not a decrease in the agency's costs.
Therefore I ask where it is expected that there will be savings. It seems quite obvious to me that if there are any savings, there will certainly be made at the expense of frontline workers.
As a matter of fact, 20% of public servants will no longer come under the Public Service Employment Act. Clause 30(1) shows the government's true intentions, which are barely hidden. It says:
- (1) The Agency has authority over all matters relating to: a ) general administrative policy in the Agency; b ) the organization of the Agency; c ) Agency real property—
And this is where the section becomes interesting: d ) personnel management, including the determination of terms and conditions of employment of persons employed by the Agency.
Clause 54 tells us even more. It says:
- (1) The Agency must develop a program governing staffing, including the appointment of, and recourse for, employees.
(2) No collective agreements may deal with matters governed by the staffing program.
The anti-union nature of this bill is quite obvious.
With this bill, the government shows that it is incapable of being a good employer, doubly so. It introduces a bill that threatens the job security of one-fifth of the public service, and after having shamefully delayed for many years dealing with the pay equity issue. This government has proven that it prefers strong-arm tactics to crush employees' collective demands.
I should point out that in my riding the union at the Taxation Data Centre in Jonquière represents 1,200 workers. Over the last several years, and with the spectre of this new agency looming since 1996, employees and local management have had to deal with a series of unbelievable adjustments, drastic budget cuts, a reorganisation of services between various taxation centres, the use of a large part of their operating budget to avoid the Y2K bug, while implementing costly new technologies requiring less human involvement.
All this turmoil has required superhuman efforts to minimise the impact on jobs. So far, they have managed pretty well to avoid serious problems. The Taxation Data Centre still has an excellent reputation as regards the performance of its employees.
In a region like ours, where unemployment is high, every job counts. What will be the impact of the establishment of this new agency, and how many jobs will be lost in the next two years? Perhaps no job will be lost. However, if there is little or no impact on jobs, then should we not conclude that, in order to save money, we will have to cut services to the public or impose user fees? Indeed, the agency will have the authority to establish user fees for the services which are useful to the users.
Therefore, this measure could mean user fees for individuals or small businesses, and that for the privilege of paying their taxes. This takes the cake.
If the federal government really wants to reduce overlap and duplication between the federal and provincial governments, really wants to reduce costs for businesses, taxpayers and governments, then we agree. In Quebec we already have our revenue department which collects provincial taxes and, since 1992, the federal GST.
As I was saying at the beginning of my remarks, I urge the government to withdraw this bill which will not save any money or simplify tax administration but will reduce parliamentary control over tax collection and administration, at the same time as threatening job security and working conditions for 40,000 employees.