Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion the hon. member across has for his constituency. He is from the north. However, I do have to bring him back to the purpose of this bill we are debating this evening.
His question was with regard to a policy issue in the tax system. However, the bill we are dealing with today, Bill C-48, deals with legislation that has already been passed, that has had regulations and some changes to the Tax Act, or a number of other acts such as the Excise Tax Act. The purpose of the bill is to catch up on the tax changes that happened to the Tax Act. There is a legislative requirement that the House pass those minor changes to bring them into law.
The fact is that the CRA puts a note out with respect to the changes that are made. They go into effect virtually immediately and the industry, mostly the tax professionals, accepts those as being in place. However, this bill would actually put them into law.
It has been 10 years, and that is a long time. I do agree with the auditor's report that we need to be doing these minor catch-up tax amendments more often than every decade.
However, the question he asked has absolutely nothing to do with the bill.