Mr. Speaker, the Tory budget seems long on corporate tax cuts, and I count three or four specific items, but short on corporate tax fairness.
In the first Tory budget, why did the Conservatives not do something about what is called, in the language of accountants, tax-motivated expatriation? This is a nice way of putting what are considered to be sleazy, tax-cheating loopholes where corporate tax fugitives create dummy companies in corporate tax havens so they do not have to pay their corporate taxes in Canada. The most egregious example about which most Canadians know is our former prime minister. He very conveniently tore up all the tax treaties with all the other tax havens except for the one country where he himself had all the dummy companies of Canada Steamship Lines so he could be a corporate tax fugitive and avoid paying his fair share of corporate taxes.
Why did the Conservatives choose not to plug this last corporate tax haven, which is being exploited? My figures are that it is costing Canadians $15 billion worth of lost revenue?