Mr. Speaker, I would like to start off by deploring the time limit that has been set on our debate, courtesy of the government party.
This procedure is termed a gag order because it limits our ability to pursue debate and exchanges on a bill. When a gag is imposed, it prevents us as parliamentarians from continuing the exchange on matters of great importance.
When there is little opposition to a bill, when we reach agreement promptly, when a bill is well put together and when everything appears to be in order, we make interventions in order to make some improvements, and then, relatively promptly, the debate leads to its logical conclusion, which is unanimous passage of the bill or, more often, its passage following a division to settle the outstanding points.
When a bill is more sensitive and more complicated, and when the positions of the various parties with something to say on the bill are harder to reconcile, then we need more time.
For some reason, the government deems it preferable to prevent us from continuing debate in an attempt to bring the various positions closer together and to find acceptable compromises. The government prefers to impose a gag order.
What will the outcome be? We will end up with a bill on which there will be a division, while considerable dissent still remains and consensus has not been reached, or in other words a bill that will be passed, despite its being badly put together.
It is an affront to our democratic principles. It is an affront to the quality of work that should come out of this House and, finally, it is an affront to the public's right to the best legislation possible in Quebec and Canada.
This is the situation we are facing. This bill was not unanimously received, quite the contrary, and we oppose it for a number of real and significant reasons. Rather than try to compromise or to align positions, the government, it seems, is insisting on its own position, will not budge, will not compromise. That is why it is imposing closure.
We should now, because we have a limited time, simply reiterate our positions in the knowledge—and note how frustrating it is—that the government will not budge one iota on the bill before the House.
It is frustrating to know that, despite our efforts, our recommendations, our research and our concerns, the government is turning a deaf ear, preferring to stop discussions and have the bill passed. Naturally, since the government has a majority, it knows it can impose its bill.
The House of Commons does not exist for the government to impose bills. A government that respects the opposition does not impose bills. The government is making a mistake, because this is an important bill affecting everyone. One day, it will realize that there will indeed be the negative effects we predicted, and the public will let the government know just what it thinks in an election.
Two years ago, in the last parliament, the Bloc Quebecois, the NDP and the other opposition parties accurately predicted the adverse effects of the employment insurance reform. We put our finger on its major flaws, which would end up depriving people of the income they need when they lose their jobs. We predicted the adverse effects of the reform on the dynamics of the labour market and on the employment situation.
We pointed all this out. Two years later, it is obvious we were right. The minister and government of the day took no notice of our objections and made no attempt to incorporate our suggestions for improvement into the bill. Since the legislation has been in effect, hundreds of thousands of people have been hurt by the major flaws in this legislation.
Not one government minister would set foot in an airplane thrown together the way the House sometimes throws its bills together.
The bill before us is ill-drafted. If it were an airplane, it would never get off the ground. But it is proposed legislation, and the government is determined that it will fly, with predictable results.
There are still ordinary folks who will have to defend themselves against this unjust and inefficient legislation, who will have to prove that they are right. Worse still, even if they are right, if the law says they are wrong, then it is the law that will apply regardless.
I would also like to point out that the bill before us wants to concentrate tax collection in one agency that is, to all intents and purposes, independent of the minister. It is a bill that separates tax collection in Canada from our responsibility as parliamentarians. This is a serious matter.
It is serious because, the day something goes wrong in this agency, we will rise in the House and question the Minister of Revenue. We will tell him that there is such and such a problem that should be corrected. Like all the other ministers hiding behind commissions and agencies, the minister will tell us that the agency in question is an independent body, with its own problem-solving mechanisms, and that it is able to take care of matters itself. He will tell us that there is a complaints commission and that we should butt out.
With a bill like this, it is not the opposition the government is telling to butt out, it is the poor population of Canada. The problem is that the responsibility of parliament for an important agency in charge of tax collection is being removed.
There is an old principle “No taxation without representation”. To confer on an organization operating almost at arm's length from parliament the power, duty and means to collect our taxes is certainly stretching this principle to the limit.
I will go one step further. In Quebec, we have our own department of revenue. My question to the government is this: Since the social union project to allow a province to opt out of a federal government program is now on the table and will be in the coming weeks the subject of further debate between the provincial premiers and the federal government, could and should Quebec not opt out of this project to have tax collected by an outside agency and collect both provincial taxes and all federal taxes and then, through the Quebec revenue department, send taxes collected on behalf of Canada to the Minister of Finance? The Quebec revenue department already does it, with great success and efficiency, for the GST.
Since I am running out of time, I want to say that I appreciate having had this opportunity to express my views. I hope the government will consider withdrawing this bill forthwith.