Madam Speaker, the issue I want to debate here this evening has to do with a question I asked the Minister of National Revenue in the House on September 26 regarding the Panama Papers.
The matter of the Panama Papers, like that of tax evasion and tax havens, should be a primary concern for the Canadian government. Unfortunately, in this case, as was the case with past leaked documents concerning banking institutions in Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and, with respect to KPMG, the Isle of Man, the federal government appears to have very little interest in getting to the bottom of these matters. Of course, the Liberals claim otherwise, saying that they are making investments. At the end of the day, however, their efforts are completely ineffective because they are not addressing the underlying issues.
I recognize that the current Liberal government is not to blame for this problem. In fact, this problem has been perpetuated by the various successive governments we have had over the past several years.
The Panama Papers are problematic because, as everyone knows, the government has information on the taxpayers who used the firm Mossack Fonseca and who used shadow companies, not systematically but in many cases, to get out of paying taxes here in Canada.
The government, like other governments before it, does not seem to be in much of a hurry to investigate all this or report on investigations it has completed.
This reminds me a lot of the KPMG and Isle of Man situation, which was even worse, in my opinion. In that case, as in the case of the Panama Papers, the government said it exposed KPMG's scheme. It also said that it went to great lengths to investigate.
Thanks to the work of journalists at Radio-Canada and CBC, we learned that what actually happened was that the Canada Revenue Agency offered amnesty to those who were caught bending the rules, and as a result they would have to pay only the taxes they owed anyway, without penalty or interest.
When middle-class taxpayers make a technical mistake, which is often unintentional, and are flagged by the Canada Revenue Agency, I can assure the House that they are asked to pay not just the amount owing, but interest as well. In some cases, that can be double or triple the original amount.
However, wealthy Canadians who voluntarily used a tax scheme, face no consequences, are told not to do it again, and just to repay the money originally owing. In my opinion, the fact that the government does not take this situation seriously is truly unfortunate. Although the government says that it is taking action, there is no evidence of that. There is no way we can see any action.
The government is also not tackling other problems at the Canada Revenue Agency, namely transparency and accountability. It is impossible to obtain any information from this agency because it hides behind privacy issues. This may sometimes be legitimate, but in many cases it is an excuse. The agency hides behind various excuses to avoid being accountable for its activities to the Parliament of Canada. I witnessed this several times at meetings of the Standing Committee on Finance.
I would like the government to expand on the answer given by the minister, who did not really say much, about what the government is doing in the case of the Panama Papers.