Mr. Speaker, I will not take the bait. I will not even bother correcting my colleague. It was the people of Canada who threw out the Liberal government, not the New Democratic Party. I will simply go to a question of some substance.
Would the member agree that it is morally and ethically reprehensible to allow Canadian companies to set up offshore tax havens to avoid, through wholesale tax avoidance, paying their fair share of taxes in this country?
In the context of this budget, why did his party and his government put up with this year after year, where tax fugitives can set up dummy companies in Barbados to avoid paying their fair share of taxes in Canada? By what pretzel logic did his party think that was good for ordinary Canadians or low income Canadians who may have been able to redistribute that $7 billion into meaningful programs? Could it be that it was his own prime minister that was one of the main beneficiaries of this outrageous, sleazy tax loophole of offshore tax havens? Why did his government tolerate that? Why did it not fix it when it had the chance?