Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate today. It will give the government an opportunity to rebuild its image and credibility in public finance. We are simply asking the government to have the Minister of Finance release the documents related to his personal possessions that may have a direct impact on the management of his department, the Department of Finance.
I will not be alone in saying this, since I will shortly be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove.
From the outset, I would like to say how much I respect and admire the Minister of Finance as a person. I respect him because, when a man of this calibre becomes involved in politics, the entire political class wins. I am pleased to reiterate that we must have very high standards, especially the Minister of Finance, because his department is key to the Canadian economy.
However, when the Minister of Finance is the owner of a $1-billion publicly traded family business that is directly impacted by each of the decisions made by the Minister of Finance, of course he has to be purer than the driven snow.
Unfortunately, over the past few weeks, the opposite has been happening. I do not remember, but there must have been a former finance minister whose authority has been so scratched and bruised, even by the Prime Minister. I will come back to that later.
Three weeks ago, in this very House, the member for Carleton tabled a document showing that the Minister of Finance's company, Morneau Shepell, has a subsidiary located in Barbados, a known tax haven for investors. That, in itself, is a major problem, which is why we would like the Minister of Finance to shed some light on this.
To make matters worse, it would seem that the Minister of Finance has forgotten, for two years, to disclose the fact that his company owned another company that in turn owned a villa in Provence. Everybody owns property, and I perfectly understand that someone with pots of money may own lots of properties all over the place. However, to have forgotten about owning a villa in Provence is a little suspicious, to say the least.
I should say, though, that perhaps it was at his villa in Provence that the Minister of Finance learned to speak such excellent French. I am not being sarcastic. I sincerely commend the minister on his proficiency in French.
In addition, we learned from CBC that it was only because it hounded the Minister of Finance that he finally admitted that he had forgotten to mention his villa. We also learned from The Globe and Mail, and this goes to the heart of today's debate, that although the Minister of Finance is an owner and shareholder of a company worth tens of millions of dollars, his properties and assets have not been put in a blind trust.
This is unfortunate, because it would have set the record straight and, more importantly, allowed the minister to act with his hands untied. It is not a failure to succeed in business, nor is it a failure to make a father's inheritance grow, as the minister did. Above all, it is not a failure to want to get involved in politics after having succeeded in business, quite the contrary. Still, there are ethical rules that we must follow at all times—exceed, even.
That is what we are asking of the Minister of Finance today through our motion. In fact, we are asking that he table all the documents so that we know the truth about this.
As I mentioned, three factors are tarnishing the moral authority of the Minister of Finance: the matter of his business in Barbados, a tax shelter and haven; the fact that he forgot to disclose that he owns a villa in Provence; and finally, the fact that he did not put his assets into a blind trust, which would have been the simplest and most effective solution.
That is nothing compared to the direct attack that the Minister of Finance launched against small business owners in recent months. Let us remember that, on July 18, in the middle of the summer, when it was nice and warm and half of Canada was on vacation, he started a consultation, barely 75 days long, to review the small business tax rate.
When a consultation of that kind is launched in the middle of summer, it is either because the government's mind is made up, or because it has no desire to hear from Canadians. Fortunately, Canadians from across the country rose up to tell the Liberals that they were making no sense. Fortunately, here in the House of Commons, the official opposition has been asking the government every conceivable question, and some that are inconceivable, in order to tell it that it is making no sense.
Let us remember that more than 110 of the 120 questions that the official opposition was able to ask in the first week were on this issue. We have taken the matter seriously because the direct attack made no sense. The Liberals wanted to raise taxes for small businesses that want to sell to the next generation. That is complete nonsense. The current government wanted to raise taxes for entrepreneurs who are putting money aside. In the private sector, business owners put money aside to use in the bad years, to pay bonuses, to invest in equipment, and even to use as a pension fund. The government wanted to collect more taxes from them, and I am not even talking about income splitting.
We are talking three senseless direct attacks against our entrepreneurs. The minister did not have much time to answer questions yesterday because the Prime Minister did not want him to, but he did announce something that he seemed to think was the best thing since sliced bread. He was very proud to confirm that the government would be lowering taxes on entrepreneurs, on small businesses, to 9%. How wonderful.
Hang on. Does anyone here remember the Liberals making that promise and breaking it? Now they are following through. Why did they break that promise? In the 2015 budget, our government made a law stating that the tax rate, which was 11% at the time, would have to drop to 9%. What was the first thing the current government did in its 2016 budget with respect to small businesses? It scrapped that obligation to lower the rate to 9%, even though it promised to do so. That is terrible. The government made a promise, broke it, and then brought it back to the table as though it were reinventing the wheel. Canadians are not fools. They knew it made no sense.
Need I remind members of the sad fact that, when the government launched its full frontal attack on small businesses, the Prime Minister's two personal companies were miraculously unaffected by the changes the Liberal government wanted to impose? It is unbelievable. In addition, the Minister of Finance made it so that small businesses would have to pay more tax, while conveniently avoiding any impact to his family business. This is totally unacceptable and is what creates cynicism in politics.
Need I also remind members that the current government was elected on a promise of running small deficits, deficits that are now 80% higher than what was promised. We were also promised a return to balance by 2019, but now, we do not even know when the government will balance the books, which is totally unacceptable. This spendthrift government has completely lost control of the public purse and has no idea how to manage it properly, and it needs to be called out.
In closing, it is important that the Minister of Finance have the necessary authority to carry out his duties, as he is the architect of Canada's economic base and is the most important minister. I do not want to take anything away from anyone, but he is the most important minister in cabinet. That is why, under the leadership of the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, the then finance minister Jim Flaherty worked hand in hand with the Prime Minister. The same was true of the Honourable Joe Oliver.
The current Prime Minister publicly scorns his own Minister of Finance. As far as I can remember, I have never seen a Prime Minister so arrogant, smug and scornful of his Minister of Finance. Yesterday, in the middle of a question period with journalists in Ontario, the Prime Minister said the following:
Ask the question to the Prime Minister, you have the chance to have the Prime Minister in front of you, ask the question to the Prime Minister.
I have never heard that. Where is God?
It is absolutely incredible. At the risk of wading into partisan politics a bit here, even during the worst years of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and his finance minister Paul Martin, two people who hated each other, never would Jean Chrétien have scorned his finance minister in that way. We are talking about the authority of the finance minister. We are in Canada. Canada is a strong and proud country that has to be led by a strong Prime Minister and a strong finance minister. When the Prime Minister undercuts the finance minister's authority, he undercuts the authority of Canada as a whole.