Madam Speaker, this must be a historic first. It is the first time since I have been in this House that the Bloc Québécois members are worried about the tax base of Canada. They seem to have an immense number of ways in which to spend whatever tax revenues the Government of Canada generates, but in this speech they are apparently worried about it. Of course it has absolutely nothing to do with politics, absolutely nothing, and I know that their concern for the tax base of Canada is very sincere.
The charming naïveté of the resolution would purport to in effect unilaterally revoke a treatment arrangement we have which is modelled on a treaty arrangement we have with 79 other countries. We do have tax treaties. The theory of a tax treaty is simple: when income is earned offshore, we do not tax it. Similarly, when another nation's company earns income in our country, we do not tax it.
If in fact the hon. individual were to pursue his resolution and it became, as it were, the force of law, we would essentially hollow out corporate Canada. Pretty well all the companies in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary or Quebec City that are of an international nature would simply alter their international arrangements. Then the exempt surplus that is generated by those companies for active businesses offshore would not at all ever arrive back in Canada in any form whatsoever.
On the face of it, the hon. member has something here about which the average Canadian taxpayer would say, “Oh my, that is not quite right”. When we push below that, though, we realize that he in fact is proposing something which would have significant implications for all of our tax treaty arrangements.
I put it to the hon. member that his concern for the tax base of Canada is really not all that well founded and that he simply is trying to use the notion of exempt surplus in order to be able to play a little politics.