Mr. Speaker, in his speech, my hon. Liberal colleague spoke a great deal about taxation and international rules. I would like to know his opinion on something that should be very familiar to the Liberals, that is, tax havens, and especially those in Barbados.
When his party was in power, the government established a series of measures intended to restrict the use of tax havens. However, they created a wide-open loophole for one country in particular, Barbados. Naturally, this offended many people in my riding, many people in Quebec and indeed many Canadians, I am sure.
While these people work hard to make a living and pay their taxes—and most citizens are willing to do so, because they know they must contribute to society—they are also disenchanted, and rightly so. The Liberal government of the day and its finance minister voted in favour of tax shelters for businesses, so that businesses could transfer home, tax free, the profits generated in tax havens.
Can my hon. colleague explain why his party never acted to put an end to this tax exemption, this gaping tax loophole?
Would the Liberals be willing today—now that they have had some time to reflect on this from the opposition standpoint—to put an end, once and for all, to all existing tax havens, tax agreements and tax treaties, especially Barbados, thereby truly respecting the people we are supposed to be representing?
When the Liberals signed this tax treaty with Barbados and retroactively changed the legislation, they were not doing their job as representatives of the people. It is about time for them to make amends, admit that they failed in their duties for 13 years and henceforth support the complete elimination of all tax havens.