Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the fine member of Parliament for Edmonton Manning, who, I am told, will be far more eloquent and on point.
I am pleased to rise today to speak on the motion presented by the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie regarding taxation. I will be voting to oppose this motion. I will say that I would have preferred to support it and vote for it, as many of the principles it speaks to I support. I must also point out that the Conservative Party of Canada believes strongly in keeping taxes low, much as it also believes in ensuring that all corporations and Canadians need to pay their fair share of tax.
While this motion rightly seeks to reduce offshore tax evasion, it avoids one of the root causes of the problem, and that is too many taxes. We know that high taxes drive businesses out of the country and dampen Canada's entrepreneurial spirit. We know that high taxes hurt job creation by making it more difficult to start and run a business. We know that high taxes hurt Canadian families that are trying to build a brighter future for their children.
If we want to stop driving families and businesses out of this great country, we need to start by lowering taxes to make Canada more welcoming to them, yet it would seem that the government is doing precisely the opposite. Instead of looking at ways to foster entrepreneurship and business growth, the government is desperately looking for new ways to bring in more money to pay for its reckless and irresponsible spending. We have seen a report from Bloomberg pointing out that business investment in this country has fallen to the lowest level since 1981, and, depending on the statistics, we have seen low grades of investment since World War II. Therefore, this is an issue.
The government has failed to follow through on its promise to cut taxes for small businesses. Next it rolled back important tax cuts for Canadians, including the popular fitness and children's arts tax credits. Recently it started looking at whether to tax health and dental benefits. It is clear that the government just does not get it. It plans to make life more expensive for Canadians.
The Conservative Party will fight to make life more affordable, not less. When the Conservative government was in power, it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper who fought to do exactly that. Conservatives understood the value of low taxes and the importance of fighting tax evasion. A pragmatic and balanced policy would achieve both goals. For example, in economic action plan 2013, the Conservative government introduced a number of measures designed to deal with tax evasion, including requiring financial intermediaries, including banks, to report international electronic fund transfers of $10,000 or more to the CRA; extending the normal reassessment period by three years for taxpayers who have failed to report income from a specified foreign property on their annual income tax returns and have failed to properly file the foreign income verification statement; revising form T1135 reporting to provide more detailed information, including the names of specific foreign institutions and countries where offshore assets are located and the foreign income earned on those assets; and streamlining the process for the Canada Revenue Agency to obtain information concerning unnamed persons from third parties, such as banks.
Conservatives also launched the international tax evasion program aimed at reducing international tax evasion and avoidance. Under this program, the CRA would pay rewards to individuals with knowledge of major international tax non-compliance when they provided information to the CRA that led to the collection of outstanding taxes due. This program helped target high-income taxpayers attempting to evade or avoid tax using complex international arrangements.
Economic action plan 2015 built on these measures and announced an additional $25.3 million over five years to expand its activities to combat international tax evasion, and $58.2 million over five years to specifically deal with large and complex business entities that were undertaking tax evasion. I would note that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance has mentioned some of the investments the government makes, which shows that there are progressive efforts to curb tax evasion in this country.
These measures help make sure that every Canadian pays their fair share. In fact, between 2006 and 2015, the Conservative government aggressively moved to close more than 85 tax loopholes. Closing these loopholes amounted to billions of dollars saved annually. That meant lower taxes for all Canadians, not just a select few.
It is not just us who believe that these measures have helped. In the fall of 2013, when the Auditor General conducted a review of offshore banking, it was concluded that CRA was diligent and that the new measures were helping. Our plan worked on this very issue and is continuing to help CRA crack down on tax evaders. We will continue to advocate that the Liberal government consistently review how it can best address the problem.
Beyond taking direct action to combat international tax evasion, the Conservative Party also took steps to encourage new investment to come to Canada by building a tax-friendly environment for businesses. Conservatives understand that we need to be tough on tax cheaters while also making sure that our tax system is not driving people away. That is why we introduced a number of measures that reduced the overall tax burden in Canada to its lowest level in 50 years. In fact, the Conservative government cut taxes more than 180 times. That is because we do not simply say we will do something; we follow through with those commitments we make to Canadians.
Our record on taxes is clear. We lowered the federal corporate income tax rate to 15% to help create jobs and economic growth for Canadian communities. We lowered the small business tax rate. We introduced a small business job credit, which lowered payroll taxes by 15% for small businesses. We also cut the red tape burden for businesses, which eliminated more than 800,000 payroll deduction remittances to CRA made every year by over 50,000 small businesses.
All these measures and more led Bloomberg to rank Canada the second most attractive country in the world in which to start and grow a business. In fact, across the G7, Canada had the lowest overall tax rate on new business investment. By cracking down on tax evaders and lowering taxes and tax burdens for businesses, the Conservative Party introduced the kind of balanced approach needed to foster a fair and friendly system.
It is important to note that the NDP voted against every single small business tax cut we introduced between 2006 and 2015. I ask my hon. colleague why he does not put forward a motion that both targets tax evasion and lowers the tax burden for Canadian businesses. That is the sort of policy I want to see from the government: a pragmatic, balanced approach that will lower taxes rather than raise them and that will continue to build on the strong work done by the previous government to crack down on tax evasion.
It is critically important that we target Canadian tax evaders, absolutely. Certainly, I believe that all members in this place would agree on the importance of cracking down on international tax evasion. However, we must also fight to lower taxes to help spur job creation and economic growth and to keep Canada competitive with other jurisdictions. By doing this, we will save money for the Canadian taxpayer and work to make Canada the best place in the world to start and grow a business.
There are so many things we can do to make us more competitive so that business investment comes into this great country, such as interprovincial trade and lowering our regulatory burden, things that down south, the new administration is currently looking to do.
While I appreciate where the NDP members are coming from on this, I am sure that they would understand where I am coming from. Again, this is a fine country. I welcome debate on any topic a member of Parliament believes needs to be heard. We need to do more in the area of lowering taxes, coupled with the efforts we continue on tax evasion, so that overall, we can bring more prosperity to this country and curb illegal activities.