Debates of Feb. 27th, 2013

The Environment

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will not read the entire petition, but it is also about the levels of water in the Great Lakes. Petitioners are very concerned about the north channel of Manitoulin Island and Georgian Bay. Those lakes around the Great Lakes basin have lost significant water levels in the last number of years, and petitioners are frightened about what this will do to tourism, the cottage industry and boating in general.

Questions on the Order Paper

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

Motions for Papers

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers be allowed to stand.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

The House resumed from February 15 consideration of the motion that Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, the Excise Tax Act, the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, the First Nations Goods and Services Tax Act and related legislation, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Technical Tax Amendments Act, 2012

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

The last time the House considered the motion, the hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier had six minutes left for her speech and there were five minutes left for questions and comments.

The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I feel especially privileged to have the chance to speak twice on Bill C-48, which amends the Income Tax Act. Not everyone has an opportunity to address this highly charged issue.

As I mentioned the last time, this bill is nearly 1,000 pages long and makes a number of very technical changes to Canada’s tax system, changes that have accumulated over more than a decade. It seeks to obtain official approval for the various technical measures that have been put forward by the Minister of Finance over the years, over more than 10 years now, in fact.

We in the NDP believe that the technical changes proposed in Bill C-48 will be good for the Canadian tax system and will generally reduce tax avoidance. This is why the NDP will be supporting the bill at second reading.

The NDP believes that, as parliamentarians, as the elected representatives of Canadians, we have a duty to do whatever we can to minimize tax evasion and get rid of loopholes in our legislation, to ensure that the government has all the resources it needs to provide Canadians with the government services and institutions that they depend on and, more importantly, that they deserve.

Because of the Conservative government's budgets, we are facing drastic service cuts that will affect the Canadians who need those services the most. Money that is in the system could be invested in our social programs and in the institutions Canadians depend on, such as the universal public health insurance system. Ultimately, we could even set up other programs. Instead of being used to benefit the most privileged among us, this revenue should benefit the whole of Canadian society. It is important to do everything we can to bring the money back into the system so that the government can use it.

It is all well and good to cut a little bit here, there and everywhere, but we must be able to generate the revenue we need so that we can maintain what we have achieved, improve and enhance existing programs, and then come up with new programs that meet the needs of Canadians. I think that if a government is not able to do this, it is not doing its job. Unfortunately, this is true of the current Conservative government. This is what the NDP will be changing in 2015, when it forms the government, of course.

Since the Conservatives would have us believe that they are good managers of public funds, I find it really surprising and very disappointing that they waited so long before doing what was needed to get the technical amendments in Bill C-48 through Parliament.

In fact, the most recent technical tax bill was passed in 2001. That is more than 10 years ago. By 2009, at least 400 technical amendments had still not been enacted.

Bill C-48 is huge, nearly 1,000 pages, and it clearly shows that this government must be more responsible in managing tax legislation.

It is absolutely unacceptable to penalize taxpayers and the business sector by perpetuating so much uncertainty and unpredictability in Canada’s taxation amendment process.

Furthermore, because the Conservatives are so slow, we are once again dealing with a massive omnibus bill and we have very little time to really study it and to examine the implications of its legislative measures.

It really is a shame that the Conservatives persist in using this strategy, which, frankly, hinders the work that we in the House must do, that is, to study and consider bills and their impact on the Canadian public. The fact that we are prevented from conducting our parliamentary work properly has a direct impact on Canadian democracy and Canadians’ trust in their elected officials.

At least things are a little better this time around because the Conservatives had the decency to combine a series of bills dealing with the same subject in Bill C-48. It is actually quite refreshing compared to Bill C-38 and Bill C-45, bills that sought to hide a raft of drastic and socially harmful changes in areas such as environmental protection, immigration, employment insurance, old age security and many more.

Despite all that, although tax measures are involved and it is all one subject, in general we are in favour of the bill’s content. However, the fact remains that we are dealing with a document that is incredibly long. We do not have much time to study the amendments, which are technical and relatively complex and merit careful study. A number of them have already been implemented by tax professionals, accountants and businesses, but some things are still not clear and should perhaps be given further consideration. Once again, we do not have an opportunity to do so, because this is an omnibus bill.

Every week, my constituents come into my office in Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier to tell me that they are tired of seeing these kinds of bills in the House, tired of seeing these huge documents and tired of seeing that their elected officials, whom they elected to represent them, are incapable of doing their job.

Canadians are fed up with the way this government operates. Things have to change and quickly. The government needs to stop dragging its feet and establish a truly efficient process for quickly and regularly enacting the technical amendments in the comfort letters issued several times a year by the Department of Finance.

I think the message is clear. I will repeat what a number of my colleagues have already said: we will be supporting the bill. However, we must ensure that a situation like the one we are faced with today will not occur again, and we must ensure that the government will present us with technical amendments on a regular basis so that we can do our job properly.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very informative speech.

This is so complicated because there are so many measures to be implemented at the same time; 200, in fact. Does my colleague think that the average Canadian will be able to understand all this? Even experts think that the legislation is difficult to interpret and that it is hard to understand all the ins and outs of it. Businesses think it is burdensome.

How is the average person—who is not necessarily familiar with every tax measure—supposed to make any sense of this and file accurate returns?

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very important question. In fact, the answer is simple: average people simply cannot make any sense of this.

It is hard enough for us as MPs to understand exactly what is included in this bill. It is so long and complicated and goes back such a long way that it is hard to know where things stand and what still applies.

It is just as hard for tax experts, business people and our various merchants. All these people who actively contribute to our economy and our global productivity are a bit lost and do not necessarily have all the necessary resources to contribute fully to our economy.

I find it rather surprising that the government, which boasts about being there for businesses, creating jobs and enhancing Canada's economic growth, is in this situation. Frankly, this is standing in our way. The government is counting on these people to grow our economy, create jobs and ensure that people have enough income to live well in this country.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her excellent speech. She highlighted all of the flaws of this bill. We will support this bill, since it is a step in the right direction, but there are some problems with it. For example, the government could have improved certain things, such as tax evasion. This bill is a step towards combatting tax evasion, but it is just a start.

The NDP recently held a meeting where it condemned the Conservative government's complacency towards combatting tax evasion. The Leader of the Opposition was there. He spoke and mentioned that the NDP wants more tax fairness, so that everyone pays their fair share.

I would like to hear what my hon. colleague thinks about more seriously targeting tax evasion so that Canadians get their money's worth from a services perspective.

[Élaine Michaud, NDP, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his extremely important question.

I have a number of comments. First, I would like to say how important it is to address tax evasion. It is a question of justice and equality for each and every Canadian. These are honest people who are paying their taxes. We want to defend honest Canadians when it comes to employment insurance and the correct use of taxes. The NDP does not defend fraudsters; we defend those who are honest, no matter what the government says.

Allowing certain privileged Canadians to have benefits that none of us here could have is unacceptable, and the fact that they enjoy these benefits at others' expense is just as unacceptable. The government must act quickly.

Second, it is also extremely important that we bring that money back to Canada, to the government, so that we can provide the programs and resources that our people are calling for, that they deserve and that they need.

This government is making cuts in every department, except for the propaganda department, of course. We all have to listen to the half-truths that the government is spewing. It is spending millions of dollars on propaganda at taxpayers' expense.

It is making all these cuts, but it is never going to take in enough revenue to maintain what we have and improve existing programs. It is offering tax breaks to big business, letting people hide their money in tax havens, making cuts, lowering taxes and so on.

It has very little revenue, and it is not able to make the machinery of government work the way it should. And that is why it is so important to keep tax evasion in Canada to a minimum or eliminate it entirely.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, since the passage of the last technical tax bill in 2001, the government has made a number of tax-related changes through the use of comfort letters.

However, these new measures have become common practice and have never been incorporated into a technical tax bill.

Bill C-48, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act and other tax legislation, will incorporate more than 200 changes made to the tax code since 2001, over 12 years ago.

We support this bill because it will implement a series of technical amendments to the tax system that have been developed over the last decade. These technical changes are in fact largely beneficial and necessary. In the NDP, we believe that these changes will ultimately have a positive impact on revenues and are a good way of reducing tax avoidance, as has been discussed at length in this debate.

Tax evasion costs Canadians a lot of money. It is estimated that Canada foregoes revenue amounting to nearly $80 billion every year because of various forms of tax avoidance.

Numerous measures can be adopted to deal with tax avoidance, including the fair and uniform application of tax rules, as is done in this bill, and the automatic exchange of tax information and adoption of a protocol for publishing the taxes paid by corporations. It is in fact impossible to enact all these measures without leadership from the government.

I believe that this bill and the measures it includes are a step in the right direction, to help the government combat tax avoidance and deter these various practices.

Similarly, the bill talks about various measures to ensure that income received by residents of Canada from any source is taxed, and measures relating to the taxation of foreign affiliates of Canadian multinational corporations. The purpose of those measures is essentially to guarantee the integrity of the tax system and deter tax evasion.

The bill also contains provisions implementing various technical measures that have been developed since 2002. Among other things, that part contains anti-avoidance measures, which I will not list because this is very technical, measures limiting the use of foreign tax credit generators in order to avoid foreign tax, measures setting out the rules for taxable Canadian property of non-residents and immigrants, and the creation of a regime for information reporting of tax avoidance transactions so that people can be informed about how avoidance occurs and avoid falling into that trap or to make it easier to identify these forms of avoidance.

Any avoidance transaction that is for the purpose of obtaining a tax benefit will now have to be reported for greater transparency, even if it is not improper.

The bill also includes three new measures that we support and that had not been announced already.

First, a number of federal fiscal constraints will be rectified to solve transition problems.

Second, the formula for the attribution of taxable corporate income that applies to airline corporations is amended to ensure that the taxable income of one of these companies is entirely attributed to the provinces or territories where it has a permanent establishment. That is logical.

Third, a measure relating to the tax treatment of shares owned by short-term residents for departure tax purposes. Obviously, this is all very abstruse, but it is part of the 1,000 pages being added. This adds to the complexity, which we find unfortunate in view of the fact that there have already been 3,000 pages of tax measures in the last few decades.

All in all, by ensuring the integrity of the tax law in force and minimizing the potential loopholes, these measures will operate to increase government revenue. As my colleague said, when government revenue is increased, then we can invest in social programs, for example, and in programs for health care, the environment and greater fairness.

In its present form, however, the tax system is unendingly complex. That complexity affects individuals, for whom it is very difficult to plan their taxes with the vast menu of tax credits we now have.

The tax system also poses problems for Canadian businesses and undermines their competitiveness. If they have to dissect it all and invest in administrators or accountants who have to analyze each of the 200 amendments being made a decade later, for example, that is money that they cannot invest in local jobs or jobs in their small business. It therefore reduces their productivity and competitiveness.

The difficulty of planning their spending also limits investments in innovation and hiring. Clearer tax rules could improve the competitiveness of our businesses and create more jobs.

While we support the bill, the document is nearly 1,000 pages long and has all the makings of an omnibus bill, again. Obviously, the last technical tax bill, which was more than 12 years ago, incorporates certain legislative amendments, some of which go back to 1998. The enormous scope of this bill demonstrates that the government has to be a lot more responsible in its management of tax legislation and make sure that proposals relating to tax law are enacted more regularly.

Unlike the gigantic budget bills, Bill C-38 and Bill C-45, the changes made do not affect a huge spectrum of legislation, and rather affect certain specific statutes. But this bill still does much to complicate the work that parliamentarians do in assessing bills, given that a lot of time is needed to process a bill and get through a thousand-page block, time that we do not have today.

As well, prioritizing the elimination of tax loopholes has to be done in a timely manner. Most of these measures have been adopted in current practice. The fact that they are not being enacted until years later brings an element of uncertainty and unforeseeability to the business world. Experience seems to tell us that it might be time to rethink how we do this. Tax bills should be much more modest—shorter, that is—and there should be more of them, introduced on a regular basis, to ensure that their provisions are implemented in a more timely manner.

In addition to legitimizing the work done by parliamentarians, that would operate to reassure the business world. It would also show that we are much more democratic and would mean we could avoid having unenacted tax measures accumulate, since this impedes progress, and at the same time allow us to improve and strengthen the Canadian tax system. It would also operate to facilitate financial planning and management for businesses, taxpayers and tax experts, who themselves have trouble making their way through all this jumble of rules.

As well, enacting tax measures speedily after they are announced would also enable the government to collect large sums of money that could be reinvested in programs for health care, education, food inspection and environmental assessment, for example.

This position is shared by many experts, including the former Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, the Certified General Accountants Association of Canada, as well as Marlene Legare, former senior chief of the Sales Tax Division at the Department of Finance. They all agree that this will help improve the process and simplify our tax legislation, which is becoming increasingly complex.

We recently led a campaign against the excessive fees that credit card companies are charging small and medium-sized businesses and other merchants. Businesses are already overwhelmed by all the paperwork. With all that those companies contribute to Canada, the Conservatives—who claim to be the best advocates of local economies and small and medium-sized businesses—are blocking the growth of local economies and job creation. It is hard to believe the Conservatives when they introduce these kinds of bills.

In closing, in 2009, the former Auditor General of Canada, Sheila Fraser, was already concerned about the fact that at least 400 technical amendments still had not been enacted through legislation. Bill C-48 enacts more than 200 of these measures and changes. I wish to echo Ms. Fraser's concerns, given that another 200 changes still have not been applied and remain outstanding.

Can the government tell us when it plans to incorporate those measures into legislation and how? It would be a shame to have to wait another 10 years before those changes are adopted, especially since, much like this bill overall, they will have a positive impact on Canada's tax system. Just like the measures that will be added to the legislation thanks to Bill C-48, the purpose of these measures is to ensure the integrity of our existing tax legislation, close the loopholes to discourage tax avoidance, increase our revenues and therefore take part in positive economics.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her cogent presentation on this mammoth bill.

My hon. friend has mentioned the comments by former Auditor General Sheila Fraser, who said that there had not been an updating bill along these lines, to update the tax laws, since 1998. I also notice that Thomas McDonnell, who is a tax lawyer with Thorsteinssons, added what seem to be the comments of the general public about the omnibus budget bills by the government. He said, “My printed version of the changes and accompanying notes runs well in excess of 900 pages. The Bill will also be passed without much in the way of informed debate in the House”.

The hon. member has raised very validly the delay in bringing forward these kinds of changes. Clearly, the changes are long needed and are supported. Could she speak to whether it is important for the government to start bringing forward, at least on a yearly basis, these kinds of changes? At least then we could be sure that we were increasing the revenue side of the stream, if not the payouts to those who are deserving of the support of the federal government.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. In fact, she is right.

As we have said over and over, many tax experts are criticizing the fact that the bill is very complicated, given its scope. Too much time passes between the amendments and their application. Too many measures have to be adopted at the same time. Therefore, the government should introduce bills on a more regular basis, with much fewer changes, so that they are easier to understand.

When even tax experts find the bill difficult to understand, imagine what this can mean for mere mortals and businesses. This affects our economy, and also democracy, because we have to vote on it. However, it is difficult to get at the facts when even the tax experts cannot figure the bill out.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear colleague for her very interesting speech.

I was shocked to see that there were about 200 measures that have not yet been considered. Businesses and Canadians who try to do their homework and pay their taxes are the ones who suffer. The legislation is incredibly complicated. There are contradictions, duplications and errors. I think the delay in getting this done has taken a toll on the economy.

Has my colleague heard her constituents complain about how complicated the legislation is or offer any solutions?

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Pontiac for his very relevant question.

As we have said many times, small and medium-sized businesses will suffer the most from all of these changes. This will prevent them from moving forward and investing because there are a lot of risks.

We are proposing that we have measures like these more regularly, to reassure people and make the restrictions clear. We are also proposing that we combat tax avoidance. Nearly $80 billion a year is lost to tax havens, and the government is not doing anything about it. We are suggesting that the government provide information on tax avoidance in its many forms, and publish all corporate taxes. People would then be aware and could verify the tax sources.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to follow the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry, who gave a wonderful, detailed speech.

We have just begun to really delve into this bill that is more than 1,000 pages long. Bill C-48 is absolutely enormous.

As my colleague just said, we are talking about measures that should have been taken 10 or more years ago. Some of them go back as far as 1998. We have to wonder why the government took so long to introduce this huge bill in the House. Why did it take so long to address the 200 various sectors affected by previous budgets? Why did the government drag its feet on introducing these technical amendments in the House?

When we look at the size and scope of this massive bill, we are talking about areas touched throughout the tax system: changing how labour-sponsored venture capital corporations are treated and the transitional issues that arise from that; amending corporate taxable income allocation formulas; looking at the tax treatment of shares dealing with offshore investment fund property and non-resident trusts; dealing with taxation of foreign affiliates of Canadian multinational corporations, affecting legislation that touches both common law and civil law; avoiding anti-avoidance measures for specific leasing properties; clarifying rules on taxable Canadian properties; looking at housekeeping changes to the Excise Tax Act; clarifying the minister's authority; allowing for tax administration agreements; and putting in place coordinating amendments.

Many of these measures date from more than a decade ago. As my colleagues from Beauharnois—Salaberry and Edmonton—Strathcona mentioned earlier, the former Auditor General of Canada called the government on its complete absence of bringing forward all of the 1,000 pages of technical amendments that should have been brought forward years ago.

Commitments were made at one point. I am not going to criticize just the Conservatives. I am going to criticize the Liberals, as well.

Indications were made in the past that these types of technical amendments should be brought in on an annual basis. What the Parliament of Canada would be called upon to look through would be, basically, one-twelfth of what we are looking at today. On an annual basis, technical treatment would then be updated. That is a necessary part of our tax system. That would mean, as well, that we would avoid the kinds of loopholes that exist when the House of Commons passes budgets or measures are put into place and the technical amendments are never brought forward.

That is not what happened under the Liberals. We know now that the Liberals were simply unable to put in place an effective administrative structure for technical amendments. It has not happened under the Conservatives, either. This is something New Democrats deplore. Of course, we support these technical amendments, but instead of dealing with a yearly review that would allow those technical amendments to be brought in in a systematic way and on a timely basis, we are dealing with another massive Conservative bill of 1,000 pages that Parliament is being asked to scrutinize, because for over a decade, the work was not done.

This is symptomatic of why many Canadians consider the idea of Conservative administrative competence to be an oxymoron. We have seen this time and time again, whether we are talking about technical amendments that have not been brought in or massive budget bills that are thrown on the floor of the House of Commons without the government having any understanding of what the impacts are.

We saw last spring massive changes to environmental assessments and the National Energy Board. Charitable people would say that the government was simply unaware of what it was trying to do when it gutted 99% of environmental assessments in this country. That is what a charitable person would say. The government was simply incompetent. Many others believe that it was mean-spirited and deliberate. Even though the government pretended that it had no idea that it was gutting 99% of environmental assessments in this country, the government actually did understand that it was doing that when it threw those amendments forward. Either way, what we are seeing is administrative incompetence and mean-spiritedness of the highest order.

I am privileged to come from the political party that over the last 20 years, when it has been in power, according to the federal Ministry of Finance, has been the most effective at managing the nation's finances and paying down debt in various provinces. For the last 20 years, the fiscal period returns, year after year, have indicated that NDP governments are much better at balancing budgets and paying down debt. They are much better than their Conservative counterparts and much better than their Liberal counterparts, who seem to be even worse than the Conservatives, if people can believe that, in terms of balancing budgets and paying down debt. Fiscal period returns show that. We certainly have no lessons to learn from anybody.

I would say to the Canadian public that we always have to endeavour to be better and more transparent. We had the Leader of the Opposition stand in the House today and put forward an NDP bill to put in place a Parliamentary Budget Officer. What we believe in is a system of checks and balances, in terms of finance, to ensure that the public is aware that the figures we are putting forward are tested by an impartial third party. We believe in supporting our Auditor General's department and in actually enhancing the ability of the Auditor General to look at the nation's finances as well.

What have the Conservatives done? It is quite the opposite. By death from a thousand cuts, they have cut back on the Auditor General's ability to actually look at the nation's finances. They are seriously, in the most vicious, underhanded way, attacking the Parliamentary Budget Officer. They are systematically removing, and this is the only government in the western world doing this, the checks and balances the Canadian public depends on.

On our side of the House, not only are we better financial administrators, we also believe in the impartiality of a third party to ensure and verify that the financial figures put forward by a government are tested and are subject to those rigorous tests of checks and balances the Canadian public expects.

In my riding of Burnaby—New Westminster, what I hear most often from people who voted Conservative last time, because I still had about a third of the public in Burnaby—New Westminster vote Conservative last time, is that they voted for administrative competence, and they have gotten incompetence. They say that they voted for some kind of honesty on fiscal matters and have gotten exactly the opposite.

People who voted Conservative are now saying that what they got is the F-35 scandal, the continuous shame of Conservative senators trying to bilk the public and milk the public of every last dollar, pretending they live in provinces where they do not and trying to break the law in a couple of jurisdictions.

What former Conservative voters, because they are not going to vote that way in 2015, are telling us is that it is not what they voted for, but that is what they have gotten.

When we look back to Bill C-48, we can see that this is symptomatic of a much greater malaise. We have a Conservative government that is administratively incompetent, that is mean-spirited and that is unable to control the natural inclination of the Prime Minister to go after shiny baubles and pay whatever it takes, whether we are talking about the Muskoka spending of $1 billion or the $40 billion or more that would go into the F-35s or the ongoing scandal of Senate-gate, with 15 Conservative senators now trying to hide where they live to cover up their past indiscretions.

When we look at all of those things, what we see is symptomatic of why so many Canadians are saying that what they want to see, whether we are talking about a bill like this or any other government decision, is competence. They want to see a government that actually understands the impacts of what it is doing. They want to see a government that is not bringing forward 14 years of technical amendments, because it has been dropping the ball, systemically, for the last seven years.

In 2015, what Canadians will get is a government that is competent, an NDP government that will be submitting technical amendments on an annual basis, because that is what is right and proper for this House of Commons to consider.

[Leon Benoit, Conservative, Vegreville—Wainwright, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP member opposite talked about the NDP record in government. That party has never been in government at the federal level. Let us hope that trend will continue so its record is not blemished. Those members have not had an opportunity to do that and let us hope they do not get that opportunity.

There is a trend here that I am really bothered by. The legislation would make technical amendments to the tax code. The member talked about how the bill is too big for his party to deal with properly. Those members complained about the two budget implementation bills that implemented our last budget, saying they were too big to deal with effectively. There is a trend. The opposition seems unwilling to do the work required to provide proper scrutiny for these bills. The opposition seems to be a bit lazy, quite frankly.

Why does the member not do his homework and deal with the bill and other bills like it?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, a member of the Conservative Party has just called Sheila Fraser lazy. That is beyond the pale. Sheila Fraser said the following, “No income tax technical bill has been passed since 2001. Although the government has said that an annual technical bill of routine housekeeping amendments to the Act is desirable, this has not happened”.

The member criticizes the NDP for quoting Sheila Fraser, the former Auditor General of Canada. If the member went back to his own riding and asked whether his constituents believe him or whether they believe Sheila Fraser, I think nine times out of ten the residents of his own riding would say they trust Sheila Fraser over the Conservative talking points that come from the PMO. That would be pretty—

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments. The hon. member for Toronto—Danforth.

[Craig Scott, NDP, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I understand that there are still 200 technical amendments that have not yet found their way into this very long piece of legislation. I am wondering if my colleague thinks it would be appropriate at committee stage to move an amendment saying that those 200 other amendments must come forward, at least, on an annual basis and/or that some kind of sunset provision for the outstanding technical amendments should be implemented. Is there any way that we can hurry up the process of the government getting to the remaining 200 technical amendments?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Toronto—Danforth asked a very good question. There is no doubt that we want the government to get busy doing what it should be doing. We would welcome those kinds of amendments.

It has been said that if a Conservative managed a house there would be leaks in the roof, no shoes for the kids, the grandparents would not be able to buy their medication but there would be a nice shiny Ferrari out in the front yard. That is what we are seeing here. The government has been trying to systematically gut all of the protections that have been in place. We have seen a mess in EI. We have seen an elimination of environmental assessments for goodness' sake. We are seeing wide problems in terms of most Canadian families seeing their real income decline. Instead of tackling all of those things and tackling technical amendments, the government in a very mean-spirited way is proceeding with its own ideology.

Bringing forward amendments that would get the job done is what the NDP is all about. Of course we will be pushing those things forward because that is what New Democrats do in the House of Commons. That is why we have grown from 19 seats over there in the corner to 36 seats to now over 100 members of Parliament strong. In 2015 we will be 180 strong and we will be able to set right what the Conservatives have broken over the last few years.