Madam Speaker, the U.S. is also seized of this issue somewhat. I think it is helpful to look at what the Americans are doing and saying.
George Bush said about six months ago when this issue was raised that Americans had to look at people who try to avoid U.S. taxes and that they had to be looked at as a problem. He started by looking at his own vice-president. I raise this as an example on which I would like the hon. member from the Liberal Party to comment.
When Vice-President Cheney was the CEO of Haliburton, the number of offshore tax shelters rose for that company from nine in 1995 to 44 in 1999. The drop in federal taxes that the company paid went from $302 million a year to a rebate of $85 million a year, in other words, minus $85 million a year. In other words Haliburton, led by CEO Cheney who is now the vice-president, undertook deliberate tax evasion to such a point where it is no longer paying any taxes in the home country. In fact it is getting a rebate every year of $85 million. At the same time it got $2.3 billion in government contracts and $1.5 billion in government loans during that period.
The same thing is happening here. I hope to have the specifics before the end of the day and the debate concludes. Of the 1,700 Canadian companies which are deliberately avoiding paying Canadian taxes by creating these tax loophole shelters off shore in the Cayman Islands, Barbados and Bermuda, many of them are getting government contracts at the same time and paying no taxes in this country.
Would the hon. member agree that it is fundamentally wrong and that the Department of Public Works, in the acquisitions or department of procured services, should review every one of those 1,700 companies? If they are avoiding Canadian taxes they should never get another contract from the government, ever, because what they are doing is economic treason and we should not be supporting them.