Madam Speaker, in February 1996, in a rather trivial throne speech, the federal government announced the establishment of a national revenue collection agency. We believed this plan had been dropped, when just before the House adjourned last spring the revenue minister introduced Bill C-43 establishing the Canada customs and revenue agency.
I want to say I support every amendment aimed at reducing the scope of Bill C-43 because the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to the creation of the Canada customs and revenue agency.
What the minister pulled out of his hat like a rabbit, is not an innocuous collection agency, but an evil creature, a bureaucratic monster that threatens privacy, the rights of Revenue Canada workers as well as provincial jurisdiction over tax collection. Even the business community is against the creation of the agency.
The minister said he wanted the House to pass Bill C-43 before the holiday season. Why the rush? One wonders why he is going ahead when nobody wants this customs and revenue agency.
The minister is proposing to alter the current structure of Revenue Canada by turning it into a quasi-independent agency. Therein lies the danger. This agency would be responsible for collecting taxes on behalf of the federal government, but also all manner of other taxes including sales and property taxes, if collection agreements are signed with provinces and municipalities.
I will set out the arguments against this bill.
First, the customs and revenue agency is a threat to the privacy of Quebeckers and Canadians. In this era of electronic communications, the risk of trafficking in personal information increases proportionally with the concentration of information within private organizations. If it sees the light of day, this agency will have access to an incredible quantity of personal and financial information.
What is more, this agency would be less subject than Revenue Canada to ministerial responsibility and parliamentary control. Consequently, the dissemination of this personal information on taxpayers would not be under public surveillance.
Second, the CCRA could prejudice the working conditions of Revenue Canada employees, and even threaten their jobs. In fact, 40,000 Revenue Canada employees would be removed from the Public Service Employment Act. In two years, therefore, it could cut salaries, dismiss people, or decide on their working conditions, without their having a word to say in the matter. By adopting this bill, the government is using a heavy hand to modernize the public service, instead of seeking to reach an agreement with the unions.
Third, the CCRA does not greatly impress small business owners. Business was meant to be the primary beneficiary, yet announcement of its creation met with an ambivalent reaction, to say the least. Organizations such as the Canadian Federation of Independent Business expressed their distrust of the concentration of powers in the agency.
According to a public policy forum study commissioned by Revenue Canada, fewer than 40% of businesses had any interest in the agency. More than two thirds felt that it would cost as much if not more than the existing structure.
Finally, and this is vital, the Canada customs and revenue agency contravenes the federal principle that the provinces are sovereign in their areas of jurisdiction. This is not the first time that the Liberal government has come crashing into provincial jurisdictions. This agency will violate the division of powers between the federal government and the provinces. If the provinces have separate revenues, they should collect them themselves.
Even Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who we cannot call overly sovereignist, rose some 30 years ago in opposition to the practice of having the federal government collect more tax than it needed to implement policies that were not within its jurisdiction. He even thought at the time that such action was illegal. In 1957, he wrote that “the federal government cannot legally have money in its coffers it claims after the fact to be for provincial use”.
What will happen if the federal government gives a central, Canada-wide tax collection agency the power to collect taxes in the place of the provinces and the municipalities? In our opinion, it would be impossible to stop the centralization of the Canadian federation once the federal agency is given the power to collect taxes belonging to the provinces and municipalities.
It is reasonable to assume that the federal government collects its own taxes so it can carry out its responsibilities under section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867. However, its plan to entrust appointed officials who are not directly accountable for their actions with collecting provincial and municipal taxes is unacceptable.
In conclusion, at a time when the federal Minister of Finance is announcing that he has billions of dollars in surpluses, he should comply with the consensus reached by the provinces and give back the revenues he slashed in recent years, to allow them to look after health, education and social services, for which they are responsible under the Constitution Act, 1867.
Unfortunately, we should not count too much on the members opposite in that regard. Indeed, the Liberal members' mandate is to defend the federal government, not the interests of Quebeckers.
The example of the customs and revenue agency should convince those who have not yet realized it that, for the past 50 years, Canada has been headed inexorably toward centralization. The federal government, and particularly this Liberal government, has always tried to annihilate any desire for autonomy, whether at the Quebec, provincial or regional level.
The proposed customs and revenue agency will concentrate in the hands of a few superbureaucrats the power to dig into the pockets of Canadian and Quebec taxpayers, at the expense of Revenue Canada employees, small businesses and provincial and municipal governments.
The federal government already collects too large a share of tax revenues and it uses its spending power in an inconsiderate manner. We will not, on top of that, give it carte blanche to collect all taxes across Canada.
This is why the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to Bill C-43, which proposes the establishment of such an agency, and this is why we support all the amendments that seek to reduce the scope of the bill.