House of Commons Hansard #75 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was money.
The House resumed from May 19, consideration of the motion that Bill C-2, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act, be read the third time and passed.
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand to speak to Bill C-2 once again, and about some of the implications it will have when the bill moves forward.
It is great that we are in the House today debating the bill, because there are many things Canadians need to know about it, and that we as the official opposition have to bring to the attention of the government.
Today I want to start with the tax-free savings account. The current Liberal government has proposed a reduction in the maximum annual amounts Canadians can invest in these accounts. We know this is a tool that has been working for Canadians. Unfortunately, the government does not, on the false pretence that doubling the tax-free savings account only benefits the highest-earning Canadians, rather than just the middle class.
As we talk about this today, we are looking at all of these proposed middle-class tax hikes that we will be seeing for the middle class and for all Canadians.
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. We probably know him as the member of Parliament for the “free the beer” campaign, another great campaign we have done.
I am here to talk about the tax-free savings account and the proposal of the Minister of Finance to move forward with the CPP contributions that the government will be inflicting on all Canadians, especially future generations.
The Liberals proposed middle-class tax cuts, reducing it to 20.5%. It really does sound good when they say they are cutting taxes for the middle class. However, they are forgetting to tell Canadians about all the other things they are going to do. We heard the Minister of Environment in the House this week talking about the carbon tax. We have to recognize that they are going to say they will be reducing taxes for the middle class in order to create more opportunities, provide better savings, and more opportunities for families, but they are not talking about all of these other things they are also proposing.
I am a resident of Ontario. We are already going to see gas prices go up 4¢ a litre, because it was proposed by the Ontario Liberal government. Now we see our federal Liberal government also proposing a carbon tax, a CPP tax, and all these other things. Therefore, although they talk about a middle-class tax bracket at 20.5%, they are not letting all Canadians know that they are actually taxing us in other forms. It really is very unfortunate that they are saying one thing but doing another.
We are not decreasing the taxes when we have backdoor amendments changing the current tax system. For those people living in Ontario, where we see horrible job creation and much unemployment, much like Alberta with the non-support in our energy sector, not only are Canadians not going to have jobs, but they will be paying more, even at the gas pumps. They are going to be paying more in the grocery stores, because we see governments taxing Canadians, whether they are in Ontario, or anywhere in Canada. I have huge concerns about this.
We talked about the tax-fee savings account, which is a vehicle for Canadians to save money. Our Conservative government increased it because we had Canadians saying this was a great vehicle for saving money. By introducing a new threshold for what they could save it gave them the opportunity. Many times, we will hear the government say people are not maximizing it. Now, what it is proposing is “nannyfying” what we are doing in Canada by introducing Canada pension plan increases.
We have a vehicle that currently works, the tax-free savings account, which allows Canadians to save responsibly, and many Canadians are doing so. However, now the Minister of Finance will be touring later on this month, trying to get all of the provinces on board to increase our CPP contributions. We have to recognize that that is not only a vehicle for savings. At the same time, it is a huge burden on small businesses. Those small businesses were looking forward to a decrease in their small business tax. However, the government will not be fulfilling that promise either.
Therefore, what the government will be doing is taking the tax-free savings accounts, which allow Canadians to make the choice on how they want to save their money, and instead introducing a new tax on Canadians and employers through the Canada pension plan, as a nanny state tax.
What is this going to do? We know that when students come out of university, they have high debts. It is something that we should be aware of as Canadians. We are asking our students to go out there and get the proper education they need so that they can make sure they have a brilliant future. They come out of those schools with debt and when they get their first job, not only are they going to have to contribute to the CPP but they will have to double those contributions. We are looking at an additional $3,000 out of their pockets to be put into the CPP.
As a parent, I have no problem because I believe that it is very important for people to save for their future. However, at the same time, what we are doing is having them save for retirement when they can take that money and put it into their student debt, put it into a tax-free savings account, or into the first-time homebuyers plan under the RRSPs and put that money toward their first home. What we have now done is taken away all of those opportunities for Canadians and, as a government, we are saying, “You must put it into the Canada pension plan.”
Although I think saving for retirement is very important, we have to recognize that this is the Canada pension plan. It does not help our current seniors, those seniors who we say are the most vulnerable. It will just be an additional tax. For those students who have come out of Carleton University with these enormous debts, we will see another tax on them. The opportunity for them to save their own money for what they choose is being removed by the current government. These are things that I am extremely concerned with.
The government has talked many times about deficit spending in its campaign promises. I want to talk about the middle class. The middle class we are talking about today will be that group of people, these young families who are currently the middle class, who will wind up with a huge debt. Whether it is the debt from the deficit or from the new CPP contributions or the debt they will have because we will be taking this carbon tax money, will we be using it properly? Those are some huge concerns I have.
I am very much an environmentally friendly person. However, I believe in the stewardship of our land. I think we need to ensure that we recognize that if we are taxing people, this money will actually reduce costs or, as the Liberals are saying, the man-made climate change, or will we just be taking that money and putting it into general revenues and pet projects. Unfortunately, I see the latter, the pet projects, truly being the focus of this climate change plan.
We have this new carbon tax that has now been introduced in the province of Ontario. We will see one at the federal level as well. Average Canadians, the people who will have to pay for this huge deficit in 2016, this line of credit or the 2016 budget, will just see huge debts that they will have to pay. That is a very large concern for me. As I said, I am parent and I have three children currently in post-secondary education. I recognize the costs of education. I am very fortunate to be able to assist with some of those expenses. Not all families can do that. What we have done is once again crippled the middle class by introducing so many different factors in this.
Going back to the tax-free savings account, this is a vehicle, as we have said, and as the government has said many times, to maximize contributions. This party on this side, the official opposition, sese this is an excellent vehicle for people to save money. It gives them the opportunity to put in maximum contributions. Instead, we are rolling that back. We have different institutions and different organizations throughout Canada saying, “We appreciate that increase and we think that's what needs to be done.” Instead, we see a government that is planning on taxing Canadians—tax, tax, tax, and spend, spend, spend. As we go through this, the bottom line is that we are trying to tax ourselves to prosperity. That is not what we should do. We are taking all of this money from hard-working Canadians and we will be taxing them more and more.
Unfortunately, now that the Liberal government has come into office after it had its great campaign, all it is doing is crippling our middle class and our seniors, and it has only short-term plans. I hope that when the Liberals look at this they will recognize that we need to do better, and we can do better. I hope that they look at and review all of the documents that they have put forward.
Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague opposite for her speech, but I have to say that I am perplexed to hear a Conservative Party member speak against a bill that reduces the tax burden and cuts taxes for the middle class. With respect to the TFSA, obviously I do not know her constituents as well as I know the people of Gatineau, but I know that those of my constituents who earn middle-class incomes are much happier about what we are doing, which is putting money back in their pockets. Nine million Canadians, including a lot of people in Gatineau, are getting a tax cut instead of a TFSA that they cannot afford to put $11,000 in every year. Can my colleague tell me if the people in her riding would rather have money in their pockets thanks to a middle-class tax cut or the opportunity to put money in a TFSA, which is not really an option for them given their income?
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Madam Speaker, the bottom line is, the Liberals are saying one thing and doing another. They are introducing a tax cut for our middle class at 20.5% and they are increasing a carbon tax. They are increasing a variety of other things. These are concerns I have, because it looks great on paper until we see all of the other pages talking about all the other taxes they will impose. Whether it is today or tomorrow, we know the government will tax us.
The bottom line is, we cannot spend our way to growth and we cannot tax our way to prosperity. That is exactly what the government is doing.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I think my colleague did a very good job of pointing out that we have a policy choice. On the one hand, we can allow individuals to save more of their own money or on the other hand, we can have the government take that money and put it into this new, expanded pension concept the government has.
Maybe the member could talk a little bit more about the benefits of giving individuals choice and control over their own money versus giving government control of that money.
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Madam Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right, we want to give Canadians choices.
One of the biggest things we see with the CPP mandate that the Liberals are coming out with and will be announcing is that it will not only hurt small businesses, it will also reduce jobs, because businesses will not be able to afford to have more employees.
The tax-free savings account is a great vehicle to allow Canadians to save their money. They put the money they have earned into a vehicle so that when they need the money, it is available to them, whether it is purchasing their first time home, whether it is going on a vacation, if they can afford to do so, or whether it is saving for their children's future so that they can send them off to college or university, that money is there for them, and it is not under nanny state of this Liberal government.
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Madam Speaker, we will have plenty of opportunities to debate the Canada pension plan. The Conservatives are making the same arguments they have been making since 1965. However, getting back to the debate and this bill, my colleague from Gatineau made two points. The first is that this will help the middle class, and the second is that nine million Canadians will benefit. I have news for him. If nine million people are benefiting, that means more than 17 million, maybe even 18 million, will get nothing at all from this tax cut, which, by the way, will apply only to people who earn at least $23 per hour at full-time jobs. I would like my colleague to comment on this tax cut for what I would call the pseudo-middle class, because it seems that this government's definition of “middle class” is not what most people would consider the middle class.
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Madam Speaker, It has been fantastic serving with the hon. member and learning from him as he speaks in the House.
I really do appreciate that question because my children are that middle class. My son, who is 22 years of age, will be moving into his own apartment this weekend, and I am very excited for him. However, when I look at his budget and show him how he has to move forward, he makes $13.50 an hour, and he is not part of this middle-class tax cut, so mummy will be setting up his apartment and trying to help him out.
This is exactly a pseudo middle class. The Liberals are not helping those people who are most vulnerable. Canadian parents such as myself are trying to help them forward, because what the Liberals are saying they are doing for the most vulnerable is not happening.
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this chamber on behalf of the constituents of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
I appreciate that we are at the eve of our rise, although it is neither your job, Madam Speaker, nor mine to say when that is. However, I want to thank every member I have had the opportunity to work with in this chamber during this opening round before we rise for the summer and thank the pages and the table staff for their commitment to this country.
I am here to speak to Bill C-2. It is an important bill, because it lays out the philosophy of the current government. The Liberals believe that raising taxes on the highest bracket will benefit this country. It is perfectly all right for them to contend that. They won the election. However, it is also perfectly all right for us, as members of Her Majesty's opposition, and all opposition parties, and even their backbench, to question the government.
Oftentimes in our system, members of Parliament are more relegated to being an approval body in this chamber and are not necessarily directing policy. However, I think one of the strengths of our system is when governments of any stripe take the policies of their predecessors, evaluate them, and continue them, if they are good for Canada.
In the same spirit, I would also suggest that we must remember that a broken clock can be right twice a day, but once in Quebec, I believe, because they go by international time. However, even in opposition, we may strike on an idea whose time may have come. I would hope that the government and members of the governing party will listen and take that forward. This country is great because of continued work toward policies that support all Canadians.
With that in mind, I will raise a few points about what I think could be improved and what the government, or ministers themselves as they work with their deputies, maybe not through this legislation but through their deliberations on future legislation, might take into account.
I have had the great opportunity to work with some members of the finance committee by subbing in from time to time. It is a very good group. The members seem to have a good understanding of the bills before them, and they seem to get along quite well.
One of the interesting concepts we heard about in committee was from Dr. Jack Mintz. Dr. Mintz raised a concern that taxing at the highest bracket would put pressure on some people of higher means, who may say that they are going to move to a different province or offshore to another country. When we lose those entrepreneurs, because 60% of small business owners are in that bracket, we lose collectively. We lose their innovation, and sometimes their capital, because they may begin investing in other countries.
The current government has said that it will use evidenced-based decision-making. Evidence means that there is theoretical evidence provided through academia, governmental reports, or think-tank studies or through actually collecting the data and creating an inventory, so to speak, on whether a policy is in the long-term interest of this great country.
In regard to Bill C-2, Dr. Mintz made the suggestion that the Canada Revenue Agency has the ability to track whether someone in this higher income bracket, who the Liberals will be taxing at a higher rate, moves or migrates to other lower-cost jurisdictions to operate, such as my province of British Columbia.
I am sure that Premier Christy Clark would love me to take a moment to sell all the high points of locating to British Columbia to entrepreneurs, but I will not do that. I am not going to speak to the parochial interests of my home province. I refuse to. However, what I will say is that there could be interprovincial or offshore migration.
If CRA was to collect the information, we might be able to get a tale of the tape.
I realize that people move for all sorts of reasons, but economists will tell us that incentives matter and people do make decisions, particularly in the higher income brackets, to find places where they can maximize their capital and where they feel welcome.
As a starting point, this is something the government can do on behalf of all Canadians to ensure that its policies are to the benefit of the long-term interests of this great country. I hope the government will give that full consideration.
I will also step back and tell the House about a personal experience. I love this chamber. I love this country. However, one of the things about our politics that we could change would be to stop judging an idea because of the messenger. If a former minister of the previous government gets up and makes a suggestion based on his or her experience, or someone from some think tank who people believe has some sort of ideological background says that this is a good policy for Canada, we should listen and evaluate it. We should not simply dismiss it because we disagree with some sort of vaguely placed ideological position. Let us start judging policies by their merits, not by the people who espouse them.
There are many things this government is going to be looking at. Trade, for example, is going to be an extremely difficult file for the Liberals, because Canadians have different views. Ultimately, the government is going to have to look at the evidence, look at how our economy has grown over the past 30 years by becoming a free trading nation, and then evaluate how that helps all of us.
We all have a different reaction when we suffer a loss, whether it be an electoral loss or a personal loss. We face denial, then anger, sadness, and acceptance. I am getting close to the acceptance stage on many of the government's policies, but members on the other side continue to get up and criticize the opposition for having a different view. We need to embrace the views, respect the views, and not cut each other down.
That being said, I will go to the subject of tax-free savings accounts. My riding is made up of an older demographic. Broc Braconnier is a veteran and one of the volunteers on a volunteer tax group. This is a group of individuals that helps seniors, usually low-income seniors at risk, file their tax returns so they can get the benefits they so desperately need. He mentioned to me that the tax-free savings account offered seniors two important steps. First, if they sold a home and downsized, a lot of the money from the sale of that home could go into a tax-free savings account if it had not been used before. They could also draw income from that account at an accelerated rate, which could make them feel that they had the nest egg they worked for. The same applies to the RRIFs.
I would just say to members on the other side that it is perfectly legitimate for us to raise concerns about certain policies. I do not mind being criticized, but let us talk about the ideas, and let us make sure that we are not skating around the area we like or the area we dislike. Policies are not so simple that they can be dismissed in one statement in this place.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Madam Speaker, let us take the politics out of it and talk about the ideas.
I think it was economist Rhys Kesselman in 2001 who did the groundwork on the concept of the tax-free savings account that laid the track toward that particular measure. Even he suggested that the doubling that had been suggested by the previous government would really only advantage the very wealthy, the people who, logically, had the money to put in. At this time of high personal debt, having the extra money to put in becomes a little harder. Other people have said that only about 16% of Canadians actually max out at the current level. That is where we might tend to differ as to the best approach.
I want to talk about pensions. Over a period of time, international pressures and mobile capital have meant that people can move money and capital all over the world. We have lost a lot of good jobs. About 60% of Canadians in the private sector do not have company pension plans.
As we look to the future, I would like to ask the member what other measures he would suggest, other than beefing up the Canada pension plan or ignoring—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker NDP Carol Hughes
We only have five minutes for questions, and there are other parties who want to take part as well.
The hon. member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola.
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Madam Speaker, I will reply to the member's last question.
The PRPPs that allowed portable savings, fully portable among all provinces, is something that all finance ministers agreed with, I think about four or five years ago. Yet many provinces, our most populous provinces, such as Ontario, have not yet implemented that strategy. This was unanimous and would allow people to have their own pensions and allow a voluntary contribution by employers. That is important.
I would like to discuss some of the other concepts with the member at another time, but I appreciate the spirit in which he asked the question. This is the kind of debate people in our home constituencies expect of us.
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Madam Speaker, the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola appealed for evidence-based policy and raised the concern that the rich might just leave in response to slightly higher income tax rates at the top end. Yet he presented no empirical evidence on this problem.
Luckily, a couple of weeks ago, Stanford University published a study entitled, “Millionaire Migration and the Taxation of the Elite”, which studied exactly that question south of the border. What it found was that millionaire migration is not an issue and that, in fact, the rate of interstate migration among millionaires was lower than it was among the general population.
I wonder if the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola could bring some actual evidence to bear on this question.
Dan Albas Conservative Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC
Madam Speaker, first, the report the gentleman cites is from the United States, and they have a much different tax system. In fact, academics have widely criticized the many loopholes that allow people to do that. If a person has the ability to use loopholes, there is going to be less migration.
I have to say that the previous government worked very hard to make sure that loopholes were taken out of the tax code here in Canada. Some tax relief was actually put in place for families, people with disabilities, and seniors. That is where the focus was.
I would point out that it was actually Dr. Jack Mintz, not me, who made this assertion at the finance committee. The University of Calgary School of Public Policy has put out a number of reports in this area.
I understand that the member has an ideological position, and that is not bad, but again, let us focus on Canada, let us hear from Canadian academics, and then let us have a discussion around those areas. I appreciate that I did not have evidence to table today. This speech was a little last minute, but if he has other suggestions as to how we can correspond on this, I would be open to that.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, before I begin, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Regina—Lewvan.
It is good to be returning to the discussion on Bill C-2. As we all know in the House, this is a bill that received its first reading all the way back on December 9, 2015. We have had quite a session since then, and it is good to be returning to some old familiar ground.
Bill C-2 covers a few different areas. It is a bill that would amend a few different areas of the Income Tax Act. However, I am going to be limiting my comments to two areas in particular. The reason for that is they are the areas that are most relevant to the constituents in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, and I suspect to constituents of most members of Parliament in the House as well. One area is the changes the bill would make to our tax code, notably to the area that the Liberals define as the middle class; and the second area is the reduction of the TFSA contributions from what the previous Conservative government used to have at $10,000 per year, down to a more reasonable level of $5,500 per year.
As part of my introductory remarks, I also want to speak a bit about my history as a former constituency assistant. I had the honour of working seven years as a constituency assistant. In that time, Canada Revenue Agency casework was one of the top three cases that came across my desk. It was some of the top casework that I got to see. I had a very privileged position, because over seven years I had very privileged access to many members of my constituency and their tax returns. I got to see the full range of their incomes, the very intricate details of their tax returns, and their relationship with the CRA because they essentially signed a contract with our office to give me unimpeded access to their tax returns and their tax history so that I could make some inquiries with the CRA on their behalf and try to solve the problems that they brought to the office.
One of the notable things that I saw during those seven years was the range of incomes. The range of incomes in Cowichan—Malahat—Langford would not be touched by the Liberals' tax measures. Incomes generally fell in a range of about $25,000 per year and maybe up to a high end of $50,000 to $60,000, so that the people at the high end would get some benefit but not much.
The key point I am trying to make here is that most constituents in my riding and I suspect most people across Canada would not receive any benefit from this tax cut, yet the Liberals keep on selling to the Canadian public that this would be a middle-class tax break. That is absolutely false.
I spoke to the bill at second reading back in February, when I was still getting used to making speeches in this hon. House. One of the things that I really loved to bring up during that speech, and I brought it up again during our discussions on Bill C-15, was the fact that the median income in Canada according to Statistics Canada is $31,000 a year. If we take the definition of median, which basically is the number separating the higher half of a data sample from the lower half, we could take $31,000 a year as a reasonable definition of where the middle class is. However, the Liberals' so-called middle-class tax break would not even start to begin giving benefits until people reach an income of $45,000 a year. They would max out when they get above $90,000 and into $100,000 a year.
To make it perfectly clear to everyone watching this debate, every member of Parliament in this chamber who earns $170,000 a year, which is on the public record, would get the maximum tax break of $670 per year, everyone. That is what the Liberals would do. They would give people in very high incomes a tax break, which frankly speaking we do not need. I do not know about everyone else in this chamber, but I was not elected to come to the House to give myself a tax break while the hard-working men and women of my riding get nothing. That was not what I was sent here to do. That is not the middle class that I came here to fight for.
The Liberals will say that it is okay because they are introducing the child benefit. It is a great concept, the child benefit. I will never, as a father of young children and knowing many constituents who have young children, argue against giving more money to the hard-working men and women of our country to help them raise their children.
However, I need to point out some evidence for everyone who is watching this debate. The Liberals' plan for the Canada child benefit will provide a maximum annual benefit of up to $6,400 per child under the age of six. Compare that with the average cost of child care in B.C., which is $14,000 per year. It is a drop in the bucket.
When I talk to families about the difficulties of child care, they say that more money would help but that what is really bugging them is the lack of affordable spaces and the lack of spaces overall. Furthermore, a lot of parents come up to me and say that their spouse works and they are a stay-at-home parent, and what would really get their family ahead is if they could actually hold two jobs. They cannot do that because the costs of child care are too high. They literally cannot afford to go and get a job.
That is what I hear. That is what I heard during the election. That is what I heard during seven years of working with constituents, right where the rubber meets the road, right at the constituency office.
I do not want any member of Parliament to tell me I do not know what I am speaking about, because I come here with evidence. I come here with testimony. I come here with seven years of experience of working with families. It is a shame that this Parliament is not doing anything to expand child care spaces in this country.
Furthermore, if we really wanted to give lower-income Canadians a leg up, we would pay attention to the wages they are receiving, and we would take this opportunity to show some leadership and institute a federally regulated minimum wage of $15 an hour.
A lot of people will say that is only going to affect a small number of jobs. That does not matter. It is about showing federal leadership. It is about having the House of Commons lead the way so that we put ourselves in the morally correct position of saying that we did it first and we expect the provinces to follow. I do not know how families make it on $11-an-hour wages. I simply do not. It is a miracle that they get by in the first place on those low wages.
I have spent a lot of time in my speech speaking about that particular tax change. It is a very passionate subject for me, as members can see. I do want to devote a little time on the TFSA, because that is one change in Bill C-2 that I agree with.
The Conservative government's plans in the previous Parliament to raise the limit to $10,000 a year would have been a huge cost to our treasury in later years. Furthermore, I do not know many families who could max out at $5,500 per year, let alone $10,000. When a family is earning a median income of $31,000 a year, how on Earth are they able to save $10,000 per year extra, to sock away? It is simply not possible.
That is a policy that benefits the top income earners in this country. Leaving the limit at $5,500 is perfectly reasonable, and it is something I can certainly support.
The costs with the TFSA increase to $10,000 a year would have risen to $132 billion by the year 2080. Conservatives like to portray themselves as the party of low taxes, and they like to really use the phrase “tax and spend”. The point I am trying to make is that if we are taking that much money out of federal revenue by those later years, that in itself is a tax on the programs that we use to support this society, to help low-income people get through.
If we are taking that kind of revenue out of the federal revenue stream, we are going to have to make cuts to federal programs. As much as we do not like to pay taxes, they are a part of living in our society and they are a part of building our infrastructure and building our supporting programs.
I will conclude by saying that we have been proposing some truly progressive things that could have made a real difference to low-income earners. I am sad to see that Bill C-2 did not live up to those standards and for that reason I will be voting against the bill at third reading.
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Madam Speaker, I want to probe my colleague's comments about the minimum wage. He sees that a higher minimum wage would provide benefits. Many economists believe that a higher minimum wage leads to increased unemployment and it is not hard to understand intuitively why that would be. If the cost of something is increased, people will purchase less of it. If the cost of labour is increased, people will hire fewer people.
There are things the government could do that would help people in that same situation. It could raise the base exemption people can earn before paying tax, like we did. It could lower the lowest marginal tax rate, not the middle rate, which is also something that we did when we were in government.
Would the member not agree that those types of measures would have more of a benefit and less of an economic cost because they would not increase unemployment?
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, certainly if we do raise the wages, that is something that businesses will have to bear, but the part that the member leaves out is that if we have low-income workers in a jurisdiction with more money in their pockets, they tend to spend it locally.
In fact, there are several examples in the United States, notably the city of Seattle, which experimented with minimum wages, and it has shown that rather than businesses going out of business, they are actually thriving.
I believe in putting more money into workers' pockets. There are studies that show they spend that money locally, which helps all of our local businesses thrive.
Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC
Madam Speaker, I want to thank and applaud my hon. colleague for his excellent speech.
Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have provided huge tax giveaways to Canada's large corporations, whose tax rate went from 28% in 2000 to just 15% in 2012. Still, this has not created jobs and it has not stimulated the economy, and the Liberals promised to help small and medium-sized businesses, which are the real job creators in our communities, towns, and cities.
What does the member think of the Liberals' broken promise to support those who are the real job creators in our society, namely, small businesses?
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, my colleague raises a very important point about corporate tax rates because the other question the NDP has always received is how would members have paid for their platform. No one in the House except this party has looked seriously at how low corporate tax rates are, how they have been on a downward trend for a decade now, how we are the lowest in the OECD with an average lower than the United States, and yet there has not been a corresponding investment by those corporations.
In fact, none other than the former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney has referred to the corporate bank accounts that are filled to the brim with dead money. It is not being invested, so despite the low corporate tax rates we have, we have not seen the corresponding investment by the private sector.
All we are asking is that corporations pay their fair share in our society. Their rates go up a little bit more to make life easier on the rest of Canadians and I think the member makes a very fine point because the tax burden for too long has been on the real middle class and that is the one that the NDP is proud to support.
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Madam Speaker, I have a quick question about the concept of increasing the CPP contributions. Hon. members on the other side call it a tax. Does the member agree with that characterization?
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, I most certainly do not. I have met with so many low-income seniors that I have lost count, so many who are struggling. The CPP is one pension plan that went through the 2008 financial crisis relatively unscathed. It is a strong plan. It needs enhancement and if we are to have a serious conversation about low-income seniors in this country, we need to start having it now. A retirement vehicle that has survived previous shocks is a solid investment for our future.
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
Madam Speaker, we are here today debating a tax bill. I would begin by observing that our federal government is faced with a very serious revenue problem. The Conservative members of this House like to pat themselves on the back for the fact that federal tax revenues as a share of gross domestic product are at their lowest level in about half a century.
Erin Weir NDP Regina—Lewvan, SK
They are free to applaud that, Madam Speaker.
Of, course, the flip side of that is that we do not have enough resources to fund important public services and necessary infrastructure. That is one of the main reasons we have a big federal deficit. It is important that if we want to live in a civilized society, we need to have ways of raising the revenue to pay for those services and those infrastructures that we depend on.
What has the government done in terms of generating that needed revenue?
Bill C-2 proposes an additional four percentage points of personal income tax on incomes over $200,000 per year. That is definitely a positive initiative, but it is also a fairly minor initiative. It does not actually raise very much revenue. In fact, it does not even raise enough revenue to pay for the so-called middle-class tax cut that actually goes to what we might call the upper middle class. The maximum benefit is only to people earning more than $90,000 a year. We have this kind of redistribution from the rich to the nearly rich, which is costing the treasury even more money.
We, in the NDP, have suggested that the government might look to the corporate sector as a source of additional revenues to pay for public services.
It is interesting. This morning, the Toronto Star and CBC have come out with a joint investigation that looks into the loss of revenue to offshore tax havens. It notes that all of these tax information exchange agreements that the former Conservative government was very keen to sign have actually made the problem worse.
The goal of these agreements was obviously to achieve greater transparency, to get more information about what was going on in tax havens. However, what the Conservatives did while they were in power was to put in place a policy whereby once a country had signed one of these tax information exchange agreements, there was no more enforcement. Canadian companies could just repatriate profits tax free from those jurisdictions. Far from curtailing offshore tax avoidance, this plethora of tax information exchange agreements has actually made the problem worse. I think that is a problem that we need to be addressing in this House.
I would also like to talk a bit about a specific case of offshore tax avoidance that I think really illustrates the problem.
Cameco is a company that mines uranium in Saskatchewan. In 1999, it signed a deal with its own subsidiary in Zug, Switzerland to sell that uranium to Switzerland at a fixed price of $10 per pound. Switzerland was not the ultimate destination or user of that uranium. The subsidiary in Zug was just reselling it to other jurisdictions around the world at market prices. Of course, the market price of uranium is variable, but it has consistently been quite a bit more than $10 a pound. It is currently around $30 a pound. It was up to as high as $140 a pound in 2007.
The only real effect of this arrangement was to transfer billions of dollars of profits from Canada to this Swiss tax haven. The Canada Revenue Agency has calculated that from 2003 through 2015, that cost the governments of Canada and Saskatchewan more than $2 billion in lost tax revenue.
This is a huge scandal. It first came out in 2013. At that time, I was struck by the fact that Saskatchewan's Conservative MPs and one Liberal MP were totally silent on the matter. Fortunately, we now have some New Democratic MPs from the province who are going to speak up for tax fairness and raise issues like this.
It is very concerning that we have this company that is making huge profits off of Canadian resources and then transferring those profits out of the country, in a very brazen way, in order to avoid paying tax on it.
The good news is that the Canada Revenue Agency has started to pursue this matter. That is the way in which it came out publicly in 2013. However, the news that is a little more concerning is that there has been a real tradition of both Conservative and Liberal governments not actually following through on these cases, and instead signing these deals that let the tax cheats off the hook.
Part of the reason that I want to bring the Cameco case forward in this House is to put it on record, to make sure that the Government of Canada is actually going to follow up on this and not let the company get away with this scam.
I am not alone in this. Earlier this week, an organization called Canadians for Tax Fairness presented a petition signed by more than 36,000 people, calling on Cameco to make these tax payments. There are a lot of people who are concerned about this, and finally they have some Saskatchewan voices in Parliament speaking up for them.
I would also like to touch on the provincial side of this whole question. The tax base to which provincial taxes apply is actually defined by the Government of Canada. When you have a company like Cameco shifting taxable profits out of the country, it is not just the federal government that loses out; it is also the Government of Saskatchewan that is no longer able to collect the appropriate taxes on that money.
This is a pressing concern, because the Government of Saskatchewan is running a huge deficit right now. The Government of Saskatchewan really needs that money to maintain important public programs in our province. This is a critical issue. It has just come to light recently that the small “c” conservative government in Saskatchewan refused to present a budget prior to the recent provincial election because they wanted to conceal the fact that they were running this big deficit.
Now we know there is a huge deficit there, and we know how important it would be for the Province of Saskatchewan to be able to collect fair corporate taxes from the profits generated from our province's resources. It is not just about Cameco. This point is applicable to the whole question of offshore tax avoidance.
If the federal government were to do a better job of preventing this tax avoidance and tax evasion, and actually make sure that the correct amount of profit was subject to federal corporate income tax, that would also mean those profits could be subject to provincial corporate income tax.
I think almost all provincial governments are in deficit right now, and one of the best things this Parliament could do to help our provincial governments generate the revenues they need for health care, education, and social services would be to get our tax system in order. It wants to make sure that appropriate reporting is being done, so that not only do we have adequate revenues for the federal government, but so that our provincial counterparts can fund their operations in an appropriate way as well.
We are facing a huge revenue problem in this country. We have tax rates at historic lows, which are not sufficient to fund the important services and necessary infrastructure on which Canadians rely. Why is this happening? Obviously, one of the problems is that the general corporate tax rate has been cut. As my colleague pointed out, that has led to a huge loss of revenue and has not produced investment in our economy.
The other issue is that whatever the tax rate, it is not actually being applied because of these offshore tax schemes, which were aggravated by the recent Conservative government, of which Cameco in Saskatchewan is a particularly egregious example. We need to focus on this problem and come up with concrete solutions to collect appropriate revenues.
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Madam Speaker, the plan for those with over $200,000 in income was supposed to be to raise votes not to raise revenue. Does the hon. member agree with that?