Madam Speaker, I would like to wish the member a very happy new year. I enjoy working with him on the finance committee and will enjoy working with him going forward.
However, we do not always agree. We do not agree on the rampant tax evasion that we are seeing from the wealthiest of Canadians. As members know, offshore tax havens and the exclusion of the web giants from having to pay any sort of income tax, or taxes of any sort, cost Canadians tens of billions of dollars a year. This means less money for housing, less money to support a national pharmacare program, and less money to make investments in Canadians.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer tried to get a handle on this and had to fight for five and a half years, first with the former Harper government and then with the current government, to finally get the information for a report about this gap between revenues that should be coming in to make investments in Canadians and the money available to the federal government. The Parliamentary Budget Officer will be publishing the report this spring.
My question is very simple. Why did the member's government stonewall for three years the Parliamentary Budget Officer's attempt to get the real information on the growing tax gap in Canada?