Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today on Bill C-43, an act to establish the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.
I would remind the House that the government had announced in the throne speech of 1996 that it would establish this agency to convert the current Department of National Revenue into a semi-independent agency.
The agency's mandate would be to act as a tax collector in Canada, but not only for the federal government. Indeed, as provided in the legislation, the agency could negotiate with provincial and municipal governments agreements for the collection of all kinds of taxes, including sales taxes, property taxes, and so on.
We cannot approve this legislation which, from the start, aims only at centralizing the collection of taxes in this country, at downsizing the national revenue department workforce and, mostly, at establishing an agency that, once again, will come into conflict with the Quebec revenue department.
The quasi-independent agency would allow the revenue department to hide behind it to avoid taking its responsibilities. It would avoid its obligation to protect taxpayers against abuses of power. This is worthy of the imagination of officials who want to increase their power at the expense of the minister in order to make decisions in his stead.
Here is what is to be found at section 30(1) of the bill:
- (1) The Agency has authority over all matters relating to general administrative policy in the Agency; the organization of the Agency; Agency real property; and personnel management, including the determination of the terms and conditions of persons employed by the Agency.
And who is going to suffer? Certainly not senior managers, because those officials will have the power to pay themselves salaries like those in the private sector. It will be the support staff, the ones responsible for processing the claims, in short, the majority of the employees. This agency is more open to patronage and abuse of power.
The minister does not seem to realize the importance of the powers he is giving to unelected officials who are not accountable to anybody. Under the present structure, Revenue Canada is fully accountable to parliament and to the taxpayers.
However, parliament will have less control over the agency than it does now over the department. An agency would feel much less compelled than a department to be accountable, to provide answers to questions and deal with concerns raised by members on behalf of the public. Do we want to see the government resort once more to an agency to avoid answering questions on tax collection? The answer is no.
With the creation of an agency that collects taxes for provinces and municipalities, do we have any idea of the volume of confidential data this agency will have? With an agency of this size, an incredible quantity of personal and financial information will be in the hands of a single institution, which will be less accountable before parliament and before the minister than Revenue Canada is currently.
The main purpose of the Canada customs and revenue agency is to conclude new tax administration agreements with the provinces. When this bill was introduced, the government did not have a single agreement. Quebec and Ontario were opposed, because this level of taxation should be the responsibility of the provinces, which should administer it. The western provinces, which seemed cool to the idea at the start, are now opposed to it. Even Prince Edward Island has told Ottawa that it is not prepared to transfer other tax powers to the federal government.
So where is the support? The department itself says that the provinces want the agency to prove its mettle before they decide to give it more of their tax programs. It is outrageous to think of supporting the creation of a new bureaucratic structure in the hope that the provinces might participate in it. There are no agreements, but hundreds of public servants have already been released to work on this new agency the minister of revenue wants to impose on us.
The business world should be the first to be interested in this agency. And yet, the CCRA failed to impress small and big business. The bodies representing small business expressed their distrust of the massive powers to be centralized in this agency. In a poll, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business indicated that 40% of the businesses that participated in a study Revenue Canada commissioned from the Public Policy Forum saw no point in having this agency. Over two thirds of these businesses felt that, with such an agency, the costs relating to their dealings with the department would be higher than they are under the existing structure.
By establishing a quasi-independent agency, the government is increasing the risk of fraud and of the sale of confidential information, for which there is a very lucrative market right now in the private sector.
As members can see, there are no benefits in establishing such an agency. Quebec opposes the federal government's intention to centralize all tax revenue collection activities in one Canada-wide agency.
The Bloc Quebecois will continue to oppose the establishment of this agency, which does not benefit the taxpayers in any way, but may in fact cost them all they got, especially in terms of democratic rights. When problems arise, having to do with the administration of taxes or wrong decisions by Revenue Canada, we will no longer be able to question the minister. He will reply that the agency is calling the shots. And democracy will suffer.
The agency is a costly exercise both in terms of money and time, the product of some wild brainstorm of senior department officials. It is an idea in search of a rationale that has yet to be found. We must put a stop to it before any more public funds are sunk into it. Any number of improvements can be contemplated within the existing structure, and they would not involve the kind of costs and disruption inherent in the establishment of an agency that is neither wanted nor required.
What does the taxation employees' union think of it? It has ten arguments against this idea. First, by creating a tax collection superagency, Ottawa's influence would reach right into our communities.
With this agency, accountability to the public and to parliament will be weakened. The agency could threaten our privacy. Fourth, the agency is a classic example of empire building by Ottawa's senior bureaucrats from the isolation of their ivory towers. Fifth, the primary reason for establishing this agency is to sign new tax agreements with the provinces. Sixth, small and large businesses are not impressed with the new agency. Seventh, the agency will bring about new hidden taxes. Eighth, it will bring new costs. Ninth, the agency is already wasting money even if it does not yet exist. Tenth, the agency will be more bureaucratic than Revenue Canada.
For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois opposes this bill and will be voting against it.