Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to Bill S-17. Taxation and taxes is always a hot topic. No matter what day of the year it is people always want to talk about taxes. One thing that they like to tie to taxes is the idea that it is an absolute necessity. Government has to generate revenues and part of those revenues is taxes. I will make reference to a multitude of different types of taxes shortly.
I will first start off from the whole aspect of what I made reference to earlier today. There are some bills that I believe are fairly straightforward, standard and receive a considerable amount of support. When we look at Bill S-17, we find there is substantial support of all entities in the House to see the bill ultimately pass. The objections are reasonable in what it wants to accomplish. I do not think we have too many advocates suggesting that we should be creating tax havens. We might hear some differences in whether the government is doing enough. Again, I will provide some further comment on that point shortly.
First and foremost, what I want to start off with is why we have Bill S-17 before us today and the manner in which the government has brought it forward. It concerns me because even though the bill we have before us is relatively non-controversial, the government has made it more controversial. The reason why we might want to speak to it that much more is because of the manner in which the government has chosen to bring in the legislation.
I have been a parliamentarian for a number of years and have had the opportunity to negotiate session wind-ups, albeit at the provincial level, but it is a parliamentary system very similar to the type of procedures that happen in the House of Commons. As we look to our days winding down here, in my beloved home province of Manitoba the legislature is winding down its session. However, it looks as though its session will go on well into July if we believe some of the reports. What is interesting about that with respect to the relevancy of that bill is that it is all about taxes.
In Manitoba, the NDP government of the day is increasing the provincial sales tax from 7% to 8%. There is an issue surrounding the balanced budget legislation. There was supposed to be a referendum, but that was not held. I suspect the reason being is that the government would likely lose the referendum because there is no appetite to see the provincial sales tax increased, especially when the province next door is decreasing its sales tax and that gap continues to grow. The bottom line is there is a bit of a stalemate happening there.
As much as I might not necessarily be a strong advocate for the New Democrats in the province of Manitoba, I do respect the fact that they are going through a process and are not yet putting in limits in the form of closures, from what I understand. This is with respect to a bill that is exceptionally controversial and no doubt will receive hours of debate and go into committee, which is a different system. I believe there are close to 200 Manitobans who have expressed an interest in wanting to talk about taxes in that legislation. Therefore, there is what I classify as due process. There they have controversial legislation where there is no unanimity within the legislative chamber.
Contrast that to Ottawa, where we have a bill, subject matter, taxes, tax evasion and tax havens. We seem to have wide support for the bill and its passage, yet we have a government that has brought in time allocation. This is not the first time it has brought in time allocation. I believe this is already the 40th, 41st or 42nd time that the government has brought in time allocation. I have had the opportunity on numerous occasions, probably 30 times or even more than that, to stand in my place to talk about the serious nature of time allocation. It is serious, when we have a majority government making a decision before the House to define the amount of time to be allocated for debating Bill S-17.
When I listened to the Minister of State for Finance, he indicated that we have had a piece of legislation before the House for 100 days, trying to give people who may be following the debate the impression that for 100 days, we have actually been debating Bill S-17, and that the government is doing us a huge favour by bringing in time allocation.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We might have had a few hours, not even a full day of real debate inside the House of Commons on this issue, yet it is the perception. The government has made the decision that it will limit the amount of opportunities for members of Parliament to address the issue of taxes.
When I had the opportunity to review Bill S-17, I had the opportunity to talk about taxes in general and the whole issue of fair taxation, spending smarter and so forth. I believe that is what the constituents of Winnipeg North would want me to do, to express concerns I might have on the legislation and to talk about taxation policies.
We have 300-plus members of Parliament, and the government has said that it wants a very limited number of MPs allowed to speak to this legislation. I am grateful to my party. It made sure I was afforded the opportunity to express my concerns. On this bill, I suspect that if there was any goodwill coming from the government House leader, maybe even working with the Minister of Finance and approaching opposition parties, negotiating, talking about what kind of legislation it is, how many hours would we like, then respective caucuses could work with their colleagues to get a sense of how long the debate could or should be.
We have all sorts of ways to enable legitimate, full, wholesome debate on bills that are deemed important, where members of Parliament want to stand up and address their concerns. The government, through this whole time allocation addiction it has, is preventing that.
The unfortunate things is that in principle we support Bill S-17 because of its objectives and what it hopes to accomplish. I suspect it may not even have required five hours of debate. I do not know, because we had no sense of interest within our own caucus or whether it was brought to our caucus; I have no idea how many New Democrats would have chosen to speak to it.
Even though in principle I support the bill we are talking about, what upsets me is the fact that the government continues to use time allocation in order to get through its legislative agenda.
I want to emphasize how important it is that we recognize that we have seen a significant change in attitude in the Prime Minister ever since he received his majority Conservative/reform government. It has been a significant shift in attitude. He has been very disrespectful toward individual members when it comes to their participation in debate.
The government has invoked time allocation, another form of closure, on legislation that definitely should have had a lot more debate. As a result of the government's inability to negotiate in good faith, now we find that every time it introduces a bill, either one day later or even sometimes on the same day, a time allocation motion is invoked. We are seeing that again today on Bill S-17. That lack of respect for proper procedure inside the House of Commons is going to hurt the government. Conservative members may not realize that today, but at the end of the day, it will have an impact.
Canadians respect our democratic system. They appreciate the fact that there is a proper process to be followed. The degree of the Conservative government's lack of respect for due process will become better known. It is an issue I plan to raise significantly going forward, because the frequency is the greatest insult to the House.
I will conclude my remarks on the issue of the process by saying very clearly that no government in the history of Canada has used time allocation in the fashion the Conservative government has, and we are only two years in to a majority government. I want to emphasize that particular point.
Let me get to taxation.
When we look at what the bill would ultimately do, we think of achieving bilateral agreements. What we are attempting to do is ratify them through this legislation. We can have as many of these bilateral agreements as ultimately can be developed and passed through the House, but that will not really address the issue to its fullest degree. If we want to deal with the issue of tax avoidance or people hiding money or not paying their fair share, then we have to look at resources and to what degree we are allocating resources to those authorities, such as the Canada Revenue Agency, and its ability to go after those individuals who feel they do not have to pay their fair share of taxes.
Former prime minister Paul Martin allocated $150 million to combat international tax evasion. We took the issue of tax evasion very seriously, so $150 million was put in the Liberal Party's last budget in order to combat tax evasion. If we follow that through, in 2009 we could ultimately argue that $150 million had a fiscal impact of about $2.5 billion. When we think of how effective that $150 million was in terms of being able to return $2.5 billion to the coffers in some fashion or another, that shows very clearly and decisively just how effective it would be to allocate the appropriate resources in order to avoid tax evasion. That is very important.
The other issue is with respect to bilateral information. At the end of the day, bilateral information or establishing some sort of an exchange framework is one way to deal with this. Those who participate in tax evasion are very creative: they come up with different ways to avoid having to pay taxes. Working toward the larger, multilateral information exchange framework is ultimately the next best way, I would argue, to clamp down on those companies that are participating in tax evasion.
I want to very briefly comment on the issue of taxation, in general.
We all know that governments need to have revenue in order to function. What I would like to see, and I believe what most Canadians want to see, is that the money collected is in fact being spent smart. As a taxpayer, I want, number one, to pay my fair share. I do not want to have to pay more, but I am prepared to pay my fair share. I think a vast majority of Canadians have that attitude. The other concern is that they want the sense that those tax dollars are being spent wisely.
On both of those fronts, there is a wide belief that this is not taking place today. It does not matter what level of governance, there is this suspicion that the government is just not doing enough. I think what we need is the Prime Minister and his government to take the issue of tax evasion more seriously and look at how we can have multilateral agreements to ensure that those who try to avoid paying taxes are held accountable. The government, the Canada Revenue Agency, must be empowered to do what is necessary to ensure that people pay their fair share. I believe that is quite reasonable.
When I look at Bill S-17, it is a step forward. However, I do not believe that the government is doing enough. All we need to do is look at the last Paul Martin budget where there was a huge investment of tax dollars to deal with the issue of tax evasion. The return for that $150-million investment was overwhelmingly positive.
If the government had its priorities right, I think that there is so much more out there that we could benefit from. A more aggressive government would ensure that all Canadians paid their fair share.
I will save my comments in terms of spending that money in a better fashion for another debate on another bill. For now, suffice it to say, there needs to be a lot more improvement.
I will conclude my remarks by saying when we talk about taxes, it is important that we recognize that taxes come in many different forms, whether it is hiking up tariffs, the PST, income tax and many others. I look forward to this bill passing. If there are any questions, I am more than happy to answer.