Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise to take part in this debate on Motion No. 485. First of all, even though I do not agree with all of the arguments made by the NDP member, we in the Liberal Party plan to vote in favour of the motion.
I just listened to the Conservative government member, who is asking us to do the opposite. She said that we would see better results in the future and asked us to focus on more urgent matters.
How can we focus on more urgent matters when the CRA cannot go and collect billions of dollars that many Canadian taxpayers are hiding through international tax evasion and tax avoidance?
This motion has a number of parts. First of all, it calls on the government to study and measure the shortfall resulting from international fraud. I think it is entirely reasonable and normal to want to know exactly how much the shortfall is.
Not too long ago, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists obtained several files revealing that over 550 Canadian taxpayers were investing money in tax havens. Those taxpayers are therefore hiding literally billions of dollars.
What did the CRA do with that? In light of the few bits of information we are given, the CRA's results are really disappointing.
A CBC article stated that there were only eight convictions for offshore tax evasion between 2006 and 2012. Those results are disappointing, to say the least, given that Statistics Canada says that $148 billion worth of assets are sitting in the top six tax havens.
We need to understand how urgent it is to take action on this issue. The government could be investing that money in social programs, health care or education. Instead, it is cutting resources, including those we want to see put in place for veterans. That is what the Conservative government is doing. Why not use the necessary resources to recoup that money?
This motion also proposes that the government order the Canada Revenue Agency to provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with the information necessary to provide an independent estimate. Why not be transparent and give him the information so he can do his job? Other countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, have done it, yet Canada is the exception. That is not right.
There is a third element to this motion. It calls on the government to mandate the Auditor General or the Parliamentary Budget Officer to provide estimates of the marginal revenue of additional CRA resources. It is clear that that would pay off. The Liberal budget in 2005 invested $30 million a year for five years, which equals $150 million to tackle tax evasion. A total of $2.7 billion, or 18 times that investment, was recouped in 2009.
In Quebec, for example, I know that each dollar invested in resources brings in $10. Why does the government not want to allow the Auditor General to make that assessment? We are not saying that it needs to happen right away, but why not took a look at it and determine if we should provide additional resources in this area? The Conservative government is doing something else.
What else did it do? It chose to cut $300 million from two programs: the international audit program and the aggressive tax planning program. I know those people at the Canada Revenue Agency. I worked there myself. They are competent, but have limited resources. How do we expect the auditors to do their job?
What is more, to correct its mistakes, the government announced bare-bones funding of $3 million a year for five years. The time it takes to hire these auditors is one thing; the time it takes to train them is another. They will be dealing with experts, people who put their money in other countries to avoid paying taxes. It can take three or four years, or even longer, to train these auditors until they are skilled enough to go after this money.
The Conservatives prefer to make cuts and to tell us that there are more important things to work on. In the meantime, there are billions of dollars in taxes that we should be looking for.
I hope that our comments will give pause to government members when they vote. For once, they could agree to move forward and allow the auditors to simply do an analysis. This would show whether we should increase the number of auditors and the resources provided so that the Canada Revenue Agency can move forward.
We know that it is easier to go after small taxpayers, whether they are restaurant owners or taxi drivers, and to have iron-clad measures to chase them down, rather than working to ferret out these billions of dollars.
I am asking the government once again to change its position and to support this motion moved by our colleague, which would allow the Auditor General or the Parliamentary Budget Officer to obtain the information required to conduct this study, because billions of dollars are hidden in tax havens.