Madam Speaker, if I had my full time one can only imagine the speech I would have given.
I thank my colleague from Victoria for splitting his time today.
I looked forward to this debate. We in the NDP chose to raise this important issue in one of what are called our opposition day motions. The context is important as we now learn that the government just a couple of weeks from now will unveil its budget to Canadians. A budget, as it is for any Canadian family, as it is for any business, as it is true for a government, is about making choices.
Liberal budgets have been awash in very large debt. It was promised at $10 billion but is going up to $30 billion or more. The budget is likely to be awash in red ink, as they say. One would think in a moment like that the emphasis on going after money owed to the government would be of the highest priority. Would it not be better to get the money from those wealthy Canadians and corporations that are cheating, that are just simply breaking the law? One would think that would be the government's first priority before heaping more debt on to the backs of future generations of Canadians.
We know from such credible sources as The Conference Board of Canada that the tax gap is enormous. It is hard to even comprehend an amount of $47 billion per year. Pulling back from that, we say we have a finance minister who prides himself on being the “minister of no”, rejecting money that would make up the funding gap for first nations education, not supplying sufficient money for clean drinking water for every Canadian, saying that affordable pharmacare for seniors and those on fixed incomes is not an option. The Liberals say it is not an option because they do not have money. Did they look? Did they check under the cushions on the sofa to see whether there might be something hiding there? Lo and behold, we know money is hiding.
This has been going on for years and the Liberals are aware of it. In the last election they said that at a time of high deficits and growing inequality between the richest Canadians and middle-class families this is a disproportionate benefit for the wealthy. What were the Liberals talking about? They were talking about this little tax loophole that costs the Canadian government $700 million a year in stock options. The Liberals also admitted in their election platforms in both 2011 and 2015 that this tax loophole overwhelmingly goes to the wealthiest Canadians. This is not about entrepreneurship and that go-getter attitude that we want to incentivize. That is not how this loophole is being used and that is what the NDP motion addresses today. We thought the Liberals were going to address this issue in their last budget. Why? Well, because they promised to address it. They said they would. They put a cap on tax avoiders who are aggressive with their taxes.
There seems to be a disturbing pattern with the Liberals. If one is well connected, if one is able to fork over $1,500 for a cocktail to rub elbows with the PM so to speak, if those individuals could be hosts at a private island then Liberal issues rise to the top. The finance minister has lobbied on this issue. Wealthy Canadians have asked him to please not take away this loophole because they love it, those wealthy Canadians who are able to forgo $400,000 a year on average in taxes. Not bad. I guess $1,500 for a ticket to a Liberal fundraiser is worth it if we did a quick cost benefit.
We also know, and we mentioned it in today's motion, that we want to aggressively get at the many tax evasions, the tax avoidances, that come under a number of rubrics, that Canada has become not famous for, but infamous for, that we saw in the Panama papers where the curtain was suddenly pulled back and all the international manipulation of tax regimes was exposed. What was Canada's role in that? What was our reputation? It is called snow washing, a new term we have come across. International accountants advise their international clients that if they do not want to pay taxes, they know that in Canada ownership of a company does not have to be declared but rather could go under a numbered account. If one does not live in Canada, then an individual can set up a company in Canada and declare its profits in another country. It is the perfect place if one wants to set up real action in Barbados, St. Kitts, or wherever it happens to be that income was actually declared because no tax will be paid on it. Canada's reputation just has to be used. These people and companies use the weak and vague laws that we have over corporate governance in this country to hide their money.
We saw this also in the KPMG scam, and there is no other word for it. Even Revenue Canada had the ability to call it what it was. For 13 years KPMG was advising its millionaire clients in Canada that if they wanted to pay taxes they could go ahead and do so, but if those millionaires did not want to pay taxes, they just had to cut KPMG a cheque and it would get their money to a little place called the Isle of Man.
The Isle of Man is famous for concerts and it is also famous for all the fake companies that get set up. Canadian millionaires hired KPMG to set up the scam. When it was finally uncovered and this was starting to unravel internationally, let us compare what happened in the U.S. to what happened here. The Senate called hearings. A half a billion dollar fine was put upon KPMG. It had to admit guilt. Three people were charged criminally and KPMG had to admit this was exactly what they did.
Let us flip it over to the Liberal-dominated committee here. For those who want to listen to the entire story, CBC's radio program, The Current, had this all playing out. It will drive people crazy, as it did my constituents. They wrote me to say that all they expected was basic fairness. When wealthy Canadians avoid paying their taxes, the rest of them, those who follow the rules, have to pick up the tab.
I will wager that every MP in the House has a horror story of some working-class Canadian, some middle-class Canadian, whom the Liberals are obsessed over, going through an interaction with the Canada Revenue Agency that ends very badly. Regardless of whether the person was in the right or in the wrong, the power of the CRA is incredible.
When this KPMG scam was exposed, no one denied it was going on. Hundreds of millions of dollars were being sent offshore and then gifted back to millionaire families. They are such generous people. They simply moved all their money to the Isle of Man, paid KPMG $100,000, and then were gifted back the money. What a wonderful world these people occupy where they make so much money they feel it is their right and obligation to not pay any taxes for the roads, the services, and the hospitals that we so cherish.
Through all of this, Liberals have said that they have put money into this and that they are getting at it. The Liberals need to back up the rhetoric and back up their promises with actual action, go after the tax cheats and get the money we are all owed so Canadians can finally have the services and the economy they deserve.