Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to address the motion before us today.
I listened to the member across the way. She talked about the whole issue of taxpayers' rights and tries to give the impression that the Conservatives are now the great defenders of taxpayers' rights. They say the proof is in the pudding. At the end of the day, they had 10 years to work on some of the initiatives the member is talking about. Obviously, they failed to accomplish that.
We have an opposition now that wants to come across as the great defenders of a number of issues. When they had the opportunity to address the issue, what did they actually accomplish? Many of the constituents I represent would say, in a couple of words, not much, because when the Conservatives had the reins of power, when they could have implemented some of the things that are being mentioned in this particular motion, they did not do it.
There is a good reason why they did not do it. I would suggest the minister responsible for Canada Revenue probably sat down with the caucus back then and explained that it really was not necessary. Some of the actions the motion is talking about do not really make too much sense.
I would like to go through it and maybe suggest to members that there are a number of issues that I would ultimately argue with which Canadians are very much in tune, and understandably so. Taxation, Canada Revenue Agency, everyone is concerned about that because we all contribute to taxes, we all have a vested interest in what is taking place there.
For many years I have advocated that what we want is a consumer-friendly type of Canada Revenue Agency. One that would have the outreach necessary and people could make a live connection whenever possible in a timely fashion, not only for people who pay taxes, consumers, but also for small businesses.
I suggest there are wonderful opportunities. That is why I was actually quite pleased that in the 2016 budget we proposed to invest $185.6 million in the CRA to address the government's commitment to service excellence through a number of initiatives, particularly for telephone service and correspondence.
Let me suggest that is quite different from what we saw in the former government. The former government was more preoccupied with cutting back than they were in reinforcing with resources that are necessary to meet some basic standards of service delivery.
Over the last number of years I have had the good fortune to talk to many members of Canada's civil service. I would ultimately argue that our civil service is second to no other in the world. In fact, we get civil service agencies from around the world coming to Canada to learn how we administer the types of programs we do, including the Canada Revenue Agency. Other countries recognize the high quality of our civil service and its professional manner and they are looking at ways to duplicate it.
I suspect Liberal caucus members, at the very least, will be unanimous in recognizing the level of expertise our civil service brings to the table day in and day out. We take this very seriously.
Getting back to the motion before us today, the Conservatives want to coin the phrase “taxpayer bill of rights” so it fits nicely in their press conferences or press releases, maybe their ten percenters, or mailers, and so forth. As they comment on those sorts of titles, they should also reference the fantastic work our civil service does for all Canadians.
Let me highlight why I believe this is not a bill members should support.
The Taxpayers' Ombudsman reports directly to the Minister of National Revenue and is neither an advocate for taxpayers nor a defender of the CRA. Empowering the ombudsman to order redress is inconsistent with other ombudsmen officers appointed by Parliament who have no such authority.
I can understand why the official opposition is trying to promote this, but I do not believe it is in our best interests. There are many other things we can do that will achieve what this motion has proposed to achieve in different ways. I do not think we can justify giving this ombudsman a unique characteristic, given that a mechanism already exists.
The creation of an enforceable duty of care would be redundant and would provide no more force than what currently exists today. The taxpayer bill of rights contains a mix of legislative rights and non-legislative service rights. It is difficult to support this motion. We need to recognize that it would limit the minister's ability to deliver on her mandate to improve the CRA's service.
Ultimately, the motion would force the agency to implement a series of very costly measures that would have no concrete impact on the improvement of services or ensure higher quality. To me, that speaks volumes. With scarce resources, there are many things we could do, some of which we have already taken action on in budget 2016.
I referenced the millions of dollars dedicated to improve the quality of service. The millions of dollars I have not referenced, about which Canadians are also concerned, are the dollars of people who are looking for the back door and avoiding paying taxes.
There is no shortage of ideas for ways we could improve the Canada Revenue Agency and the types of services it could provide. If we can reinforce what has been very successful in providing better quality service, those are the things we should be aggressively pursuing.
The constituents who I represent want to feel comfortable that they can make the connection. The best way to make that connection is by looking at what we have done in the budget and allocate serious resources that will better enable our civil service to deliver the types of services they, too, want to deliver.