Madam Speaker, societies work best when everyone contributes. When individuals and companies pay their fair share of taxes, we can pool our resources and pay for public services, including things like education, health care, roads, and support for seniors and persons with disabilities.
Unfortunately, tax evasion and the use of tax havens undermine the entire system. Some large corporations and millionaires like to hide their money in tax havens, and then laugh at the rest of us. Meanwhile, we, here, do not find that funny. We are losing out on at least $7 billion a year.
With all that lost revenue, we could be paying tuition for every university student in this country. We could hire 34,000 family physicians, or we could fill 50 million potholes. In Montreal, that would make a huge difference.
We in the NDP know which side we are on.
When are the Liberals going to take this scandal seriously and challenge the agreements we have with tax havens like Barbados and the Cayman Islands, which are costing us a fortune?