Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak in favour of today's motion that calls upon the finance minister to table all documents he submitted to the Conflict of Interest Commissioner between November 4, 2015, and July 18, 2017. July 18 was the day of the now infamous discussion paper, which came complete with draft legislation that would completely transform the taxation of Canadian-controlled private corporations if fully enacted by, among other things, severely discouraging small business owners from investing in their companies to support themselves in retirement.
The reaction to these tax proposals was immediate. They were universally panned by tax preparation professionals. In fact, I am not aware of a single professional private sector accountant who supports them.
Today's motion is about conflict of interest and the appearance of conflict of interest. As thousands of professionals, entrepreneurs, shop owners, construction contractors, fishers, and farmers nervously contacted their lawyers and accountants to find out how they would be affected by these changes, some of them, including those who would perhaps face an increase in taxes of up to 71%, were told that it might be in their best interest to start an individual private pension. They were shocked and appalled to learn that this is a specialized financial service and that the leading supplier of this product is none other than the finance minister's family business, Morneau Shepell.
The appearance of a conflict of interest in this matter has drawn people's attention to the finance minister's private business affairs more generally. Canadians, including members of the Liberal caucus, had assumed that the finance minister's shares in Morneau Shepell had either been sold or placed in a blind trust. His family business is a pension management and advice company, and the minister is in a position to influence consumer behaviour via its products.
The Liberals ran on an idealistic platform that included many promises. Many Canadians believed these promises to be sincere and elected the Liberals. As we know, they promised only a modest budget deficit of $10 billion to pay for infrastructure and to then return to a balance. We now have a structural deficit that far exceeds this so-called modest maximum, without any plan to return to a balanced budget. They claimed they would reduce taxes on middle-class Canadians, but then stripped away all the credits that most middle-class families use, leaving the average Canadian family paying over $800 in additional income tax under the current government. That was before they contemplated the draconian small business tax changes, and before their most recent disaster, the announcement about taxing the discounts of retail employees. They made a few other promises, like changing the voting system within 18 months, which was perhaps an unwise promise. Nevertheless, it was completely abandoned.
However, for purposes of today's motion, the promise that we need to talk about is their promise to be the most open and transparent government in the history of Canada. One of the first things the government did was to publish the mandate letters of the Prime Minister to each member of his cabinet. It is worth looking at these mandate letters.
In the mandate letter to the finance minister, the Prime Minister stated:
...Canadians need to have faith in their government’s honesty and willingness to listen. I expect that our work will be informed by performance measurement, evidence, and feedback from Canadians.
The letter continues:
It is important that we acknowledge mistakes when we make them. Canadians do not expect us to be perfect—they expect us to be honest, open, and sincere in our efforts to serve the public interest.
Indeed, they do. In fact, they expect the government to put the public interest ahead of the personal interests of members of cabinet.
The letter goes on to state:
This will include: close collaboration with your colleagues; meaningful engagement with Opposition Members...Parliamentary Committees and the public service; constructive dialogue with Canadians, civil society, and stakeholders, including business...identifying ways to find solutions and avoid escalating conflicts unnecessarily. As well, members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, indeed all journalists in Canada and abroad, are professionals who, by asking necessary questions, contribute in an important way to the democratic process. Your professionalism and engagement with them are essential.
At yesterday's bizarre press conference in Stouffville, we can hardly blame the Minister of Finance. The journalists who were there, who were just beginning to understand the potential depth of the finance minister's compliance issues, wanted to question him. The Prime Minister more or less held the podium, and at first tried to prevent the finance minister from answering. He said that they had a chance to ask the Prime Minister a question, rather than let his finance minister answer.
The mandate letter concludes by saying:
As Minister, you must ensure that you are aware of and fully compliant with the Conflict of Interest Act and Treasury Board policies and guidelines. You will be provided with a copy of Open and Accountable Government to assist you as you undertake your responsibilities. I ask that you carefully read it and ensure that your staff does...as well. I draw your attention in particular to the Ethical Guidelines set out in Annex A of that document...As noted in the Guidelines, you must uphold the highest standards of honesty and impartiality, and both the performance of your official duties and the arrangement of your private affairs should bear the closest public scrutiny. This is an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the [letter of the] law.
The statement on “Open and Accountable Government”, which the Prime Minister referred to, said something that has been repeated many times in this House but is important. It states, “Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.”
Now we know a few things. We know that the Liberal government has broken a litany of election promises such as electoral reform, deficit targets, reducing the tax burden on middle-class Canadians, and access to information reform. We know that the government has repeatedly made a mockery of the Prime Minister's statement on open and accountable government on everything from cash for access fundraising to the Prime Minister's visit to billionaire island, as well as attempts to appoint Liberal loyalists as key office holders to Parliament and failure to find replacements for officers with expiring terms, including the Ethics Commissioner.
We know that the government has proposed a draconian tax hike on small businesses, which everybody knows is nothing more than a tax grab induced by an insatiable appetite for tax revenue to plug an out-of-control deficit of the government's own making. We know that the reaction to this so-called tax reform is expert recommendation to some people to obtain retirement and investment services like those provided by Morneau Shepell. We know that the minister has failed to comply with the Conflict of Interest Act by failing to disclose an interest in a private French corporation apparently used to manage his French villa. We know that the minister's substantial family fortune is not held in a blind trust, as one would expect. We do not know whether he still holds the $30-plus million in shares that he owned in 2015.
Given the foregoing, one must conclude that either the Minister of Finance is so completely out of touch with the reality of small business that he has allowed these tax proposals to go ahead and come out on July 15 without any forethought to the consequences, or the Minister of Finance actually thinks that small business owners really are under-taxed at best or a bunch of cheaters at worst. Canadians are considering a third possibility, and that is that he decided to put the interests of his family's business ahead of the interests of Canadian citizens.
I do not want to have to believe the latter. I do not want Canadians to be in the position that they even have to consider the possibility of the latter. With our motion, the Minister of Finance is being invited to clear at least some of the air and end speculation around what is obviously, at a minimum, the appearance of conflict of interest.
Will the Minister of Finance, who has already demonstrated a failure to accurately disclose his affairs by failing to disclose the French corporation that owns his villa, set the record straight and table all documents submitted to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner? That way, he can let Canadians judge whether he stood to gain from his proposed changes outlined in the paper entitled “Tax Planning Using Private Corporations”.