Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my speaking time with the member for Vancouver East.
I am very proud to rise in the house today to speak in favour of the motion moved by my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. The purpose of the motion is to fight tax evasion and tax benefits that help only the wealthiest Canadians, banks, and multinational corporations, and do nothing whatsoever to help the vulnerable and the working people who dutifully file their taxes every year, as they will have done in about a month.
If we want to provide quality services to everyone in this country without discriminating on the basis of income or class, we have to tackle tax evasion, which is costing us billions of dollars every year.
They say that the Canadian democracy we are here to defend was designed to ensure equal treatment for all citizens, but I am sorry to say that our tax system does not reflect those values of equity and equality in the least. On the contrary, inequality between the rich and the poor is growing steadily. In fact, it is growing faster here than in the United States.
Unfortunately, loopholes and tax exemptions still exist today. In fact, there have never been so many. Most working men and women cannot rely on these loopholes, tax deductions, tax exemptions or tax credits. It is very difficult for Canadians to accept that the government is not doing its part to ensure that fraudsters are prosecuted and pay their fair share of taxes like anyone else.
For example, the highest-paid CEOs in Canada earn the annual salary of an average worker in half a day. Other statistics show that Canada's highest-paid CEOs earn 193 times the average Canadian salary. It is truly insulting that nothing is being done to ensure that people pay their fair share of taxes, to redistribute the money and to realize our vision of society, which involves access for every citizen to, for instance, quality education and a quality health care system that is not two-tiered.
Canadian seniors have worked hard throughout their lives, and they must be given a decent retirement, which they don't all have. In the riding of Salaberry—Suroît, as in all other ridings, some people cannot eat fruits and vegetables every day, which is not right in a country as wealthy as Canada.
The wealthiest Canadians do not need tax exemptions to live. Unfortunately, the Liberals are maintaining tax loopholes that benefit the wealthiest, while most Canadians are left out. Alain Deneault calls it fiscal haemorrhage. He raises the fact that the corporate tax rate has gone from 38% in 1981 to 15% today. I would like to point out that citizens pay between 15% and 33% in federal tax. Many of them pay more taxes than multinationals and large companies. Mr. Deneault also criticized the fact that companies contribute very little to the financing of public services, whereas they benefit, for example, from high-performance infrastructures and a highly skilled workforce.
The privileged are benefiting from not just one advantageous tax measure. In fact, there are 64, of which five are considered progressive and 59 are considered regressive. By “regressive measures” we mean measures that benefit the wealthiest half of the country instead of the least fortunate half of the country. There are 59 tax measures benefiting the wealthiest half of Canadians. That defies reason; these measures cannot be described as fair or socially just.
In 2011, Canada's lost tax revenues were greater than $100 billion, or roughly 40% of the total federal budget.
Instead of benefiting Canadians who have a hard time making ends meet, that money is staying toasty warm in paradise in places like the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, and several other countries that have already been mentioned. A little later I will explain the purpose of these countries, these tax loopholes, or tax havens as they are called.
The government should not gear its policy to the wealthiest 1% of society, but to all Canadians. The priority should be affordable housing, public services, and education, as I have said and as many of my colleagues have said many times in their speeches.
During the 2011 and 2015 election campaigns, the Liberals were committed to closing tax loopholes involving stock options. The CEOs of the 60 largest publicly-traded companies in Canada receive roughly 25% of their pay in stock options. Stock options are widely used because they are taxed at half the rate of regular income. As such, a 50% reduction is given to those who can afford stock options, so the CEOs, who are already the wealthiest. Initially, they were meant to benefit small and medium-sized start-up businesses, but it quickly became apparent that they were only benefitting the wealthiest.
The Liberals have clearly failed to take action on this issue. They led Canadians to believe that they would bring real change, but instead they maintained the Conservative policy, which they had previously criticized. We know that Bay Street CEOs led a campaign appealing to the current government to preserve their tax benefits. The Liberals are not doing anything to combat poverty, and instead, are working hard to protect the fortunes of the wealthy. This flip-flop is unacceptable for the workers who cannot afford to pay their taxes. Our motion calls on the government to keep its election promises and close the stock option loophole.
In addition to the tax benefits they enjoy in Canada, some wealthy people engage in tax evasion, which is illegal. The Quebec government alone estimates that tax evasion accounts for $3.9 billion in lost revenue. For 2016, the Conference Board estimates that Canada lost $47 billion in tax revenues.
To avoid paying their fair share of taxes, businesses and wealthy individuals can hide their money in tax havens, which are countries that have a low- or even no-tax policy for corporations. Canadian firms sheltered $160 billion in 2011 alone in the Cayman Islands, Barbados, and other such countries.
That has been made possible by bilateral tax agreements between Canada and 92 countries. Among these 92 countries, some, such as Barbados, have a tax rate between 0.25% and 2%, whereas in Canada companies are supposed to be taxed at 15%. These companies, which conduct absolutely no economic activities in Barbados, the Cayman Islands, or elsewhere, use these countries in order to not pay too much tax and then send their money to Canada.
We have repeatedly asked successive governments, and now the Liberal government, to take action and to review this type of bilateral agreement with countries where there are abuses and where there may be fraud and tax avoidance.
This phenomenon is becoming more prevalent. According to a study by the Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine, the amount of financial assets transferred from Canada to the seven top tax havens in the world was 37 times greater in 2014 than in 1987. The use of foreign tax havens is at an all-time high.
Canada is less engaged than the other G7 countries in the fight against tax havens. The Conservatives cut 3,000 Canada Revenue Agency employees responsible for uncovering tax evasion, and the Liberals have not replaced them. These were highly qualified auditors and managers. It has been shown that, for every dollar invested in tackling tax evasion, taxpayers get $10 in return. It is well worth our while to address this problem.
The Liberals keep saying that they have invested $444 million in the Canada Revenue Agency, but we have not seen any results. There have not been any criminal investigations. Absolutely nothing has changed. I will continue by taking questions.
