Mr. Speaker, I welcome my colleague from Kings—Hants back to the House. I look forward to continuing to work with him on the finance committee.
I appreciated his comments on tax avoidance and tax havens. Certainly that is why New Democrats on the finance committee have been pushing hard to get the government to complete its study of tax havens, which began under the previous government. We believe, especially at a time of fiscal restraint, which the government chooses to address through austerity measures, that if there is money being put in tax havens that ought to be collected by CRA and used for all of the services and programs Canadians want and need, then we should have that money so everyone is paying their fair share.
My colleague emphasized the importance of ensuring that tax changes follow announcements of the measures when they were announced by government. It has been over 11 years since the last changes were made. The last technical tax bill was passed in 2001. Until 2006 a Liberal government dealt with this, a government that also let things slide for several years. During the time the Liberals were in power, why did they too did not live up to their responsibility to ensure these technical changes were passed in a timely fashion for Canadians?