Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary talks about tax fairness, but what the government has been doing is spending $1 billion going after the little fish, going after small corporations and small businesses and individuals across Canada and getting very little in return, when they could be going after the big fish. They could be going after CEO stock option loopholes that would net maybe $800 million every year in tax revenues.
In terms of tax havens, what have they done? They are signing new tax treaties with the Cook Islands and Grenada. Tax treaties are ostensibly drafted and signed for legitimate reasons. They are set up so that Canadian companies that actually do work in another country are not taxed twice. If a Canadian company actually made $2 billion in profits for work it did in Luxembourg, it should pay those taxes in Luxembourg. However, that is not what is happening.
I am using this example just because it is an egregious example that is in the news. Turquoise Hill is a mailbox in Luxembourg. Luxembourg made millions of dollars in tax revenues simply by recognizing that mailbox. This is not what tax treaties were meant to accomplish. In fact, the use of mailbox companies to gain illegitimate access to tax-treaty benefits is considered by the OECD as treaty abuse, and it has to stop.