Madame Speaker, I would first inform you that I will be sharing my time with my illustrious colleague from Essex, whom I commend on her excellent work. She has been an excellent addition to our team since her election.
I would like to begin by taking a moment to go over the Liberal platform and all of the Liberal promises that have been broken in the first two years of this government's term. They said they wanted to help the middle class and support middle-class families, but one of the first things they did was to adjust the tax rates in such a way as to completely leave out those earning less than $45,000 a year. That is the Liberal Party of Canada’s definition of middle class. They are completely out of touch; they rub shoulders with the rich and powerful, with Canada's most elite familes, and with folks from Bay Street, who do not consider people earning $30,000, $35,000 or $40,00 per year to be part of the middle class. These people will get absolutely nothing. It is not rocket science. Those earning over $180,000 per year, however, benefitted the most from the Liberal Party's tax changes. That is the difference between what the Liberal Party says and what it does. I would love it if the Liberals actually went out there and told people earning $20 or $21 per hour that they are not part of the middle class and that they do not need any help. I think those people would tell them, to their faces, that their position makes no sense.
They also told us that small and medium-sized businesses are very important and that they would drop their tax rate from 11% to 9% to help them out. Surprise! Nothing was done. This government has been in office for two years, and it has yet to take any action to help small entrepreneurs, families who set up small companies to earn living and support their families.
I know the situation small and medium-sized businesses are in. In a riding of 11 square kilometres, there is no room for big businesses. There are only small businesses, all crowded together.
I will try to stick to tax issues, because that is what we are talking about today, but in terms of broken promises, we could also mention electoral reform, the fight against climate change with the same plan and same targets as the previous government, and the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia.
Back to business, and no, that was not a bad pun. Back to the fact that the Liberal Party had also promised to launch a broad review of all tax measures that make tax avoidance or tax evasion possible. It was part of their program. That is what the Liberals told us in the last election. Surprise! They are doing something else entirely. Their review only addresses one aspect of the situation and the problem, the one that involves small and medium-sized businesses and health care professionals.
New Democrats are not saying that we should not look closely at those aspects of the problem, but we do believe there are others we need to look at.
Curiously, a whole bunch of people, companies, multinationals and banks will remain unaffected, even though they represent considerably more lost revenue than the people targeted in the Department of Finance's discussion paper following this summer’s consultations.
New Democrats recognize the contribution of small and medium-sized businesses. We find it unfortunate that, in its statements claiming to attack major tax cheats, the government paints all SMEs as cheats who abuse the system, even though the vast majority of them are not, as I will explain later. Most SMEs make little money, their profit margins are slim, they do not make enough to use the tax measures the Liberal government is currently targeting.
It is like using a bazooka to kill a fly. There may be collateral damage. SMEs create jobs in our communities. They are therefore important and must be nurtured. Currently, several aspects of the proposed reform, or “pre-reform”, raise concerns. I will come back to that.
In the NDP, we support the principle of tax fairness, which is at the heart of our entire political agenda and our social-democratic vision. It is a matter of not allowing the rich and large companies to avoid paying their fair share, which would normally enable us to take care of each other.
Let me explain. A certain Mr. Holmes, not Sherlock, said something important that I very much like. He said that taxes are what we pay for a civilized society. What he meant is that we give ourselves the means, all of us together, through our social programs, to build a better society where no one is left out. In other words, when everyone pays their share, the middle class, salaried workers, SMEs, health care professionals, banks, and millionaires, we can have useful things, like a free and accessible universal health care system. It is an integral part of our identity as Canadians and Quebecers to ensure that we have access to a doctor so we can be cared for within a reasonable time. Such things can be achieved through tax fairness and wealth redistribution. Taking the money from where the money is enables us to pay for programs that are absolutely essential. We can talk about, for example, health or post-secondary education. Why is tuition so much cheaper here in Quebec and Canada compared to the United States? Because everyone pays their share.
Therefore, as a political party on the left, as New Democrats, we support this principle of tax fairness and we will always want to pursue that goal, because we know that it is part of the solution to have sufficient revenues, the programs we need, affordable social housing and health care for indigenous children in the communities and reserves that need it. We also need those funds to invest in a green shift, to be less and less dependent on carbon as a source of energy, particularly coal and oil. Therefore, there can be good reasons to address inequities.
According to a recent study, tax avoidance through the use of private corporations, the government’s current target, is practised by people among the richest 0.01% in the country, or individuals earning more than $2.3 million per year. If that is the problem, why are the Liberals not targeting just those people rather than scaring everyone? Not everyone will be affected.
According to Statistics Canada, two thirds of SMEs earn less than $73,000 annually. The majority of SMEs would therefore not be affected by the proposed changes. However, the government is unable to assure them that that will not be the case and there is a pile of conflicting information and a lot of confusion on the ground, which is why we are in this mess. We get the impression that the government and the Minister of Finance were incapable of being crystal clear and addressing the real problem, namely tax avoidance by the wealthiest 0.01% of individuals who use private corporations to lower their tax rate.
However, perhaps there is a reason that the government is unable to explain its position properly and that it seems to believe that all SMEs are potential cheats. Let us not forget that the Prime Minister himself has used no less than four numbered companies to lower his tax rate over the years. That is part of the problem.
What we are saying is that there needs to be more consultation and we must address the real cheats who engage in tax avoidance and tax evasion. I am talking about the banks, millionaires, CEOs, and friends of the Liberal Party.