Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my esteemed colleague from Gatineau. Before I get to my speech, there are a few things that I heard here in the House that I cannot help but comment on.
When the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord was asked what would happen to the 5,500 Canada Revenue Agency jobs at risk in the regions of Quebec, he told us that this is a detail to be ironed out. The 5,500 families who depend on these jobs do not see this as merely a detail. When asked how the Conservatives would solve this problem, he said that he believes in his leader. Quebeckers are not fooled. They know very well that before the election, the Conservatives try to sweet-talk Quebeckers. They smile broadly and try to sell them on the concept of open federalism.
We heard the member for Lévis—Lotbinière talking about the Conservatives’ yeses in Quebec and giving a list of promises for the future. However, historically, the Conservatives said no to appointing bilingual judges to the Supreme Court. The Conservative government appointed two unilingual anglophone judges to the Supreme Court of Canada despite the opinions of the National Assembly, the entire legal profession, and Quebeckers. They appointed unilingual anglophone officers of Parliament. In Quebec, they destroyed the data from the firearms registry, while the National Assembly and the entire political class in Quebec wanted to keep it. That was the open federalism of Stephen Harper’s government that they are so proud of. Quebeckers are not fooled, and they have a long memory. They will not soon forget it.
In short, unlike what the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord and the bunch opposite are saying, 5,500 jobs are not mere details.
I will now get to my speech on the motion before us today. This may sound attractive, but the issue is much more complex than my colleagues on the other side of the House think. I wish to begin by enlightening them on a few aspects of their motion.
The Canada Revenue Agency is our national tax administrator and has developed a great deal of expertise in harmonizing the federal tax rules with the various provincial and territorial ones. The CRA has signed a number of ever-evolving collection agreements across the country, so it understands best what kind of flexibility is needed when considering the social and economic policy objectives of each province or territory.
So far, the federal government, nine provinces and three territories have harmonized their definitions of income and have a single tax return for individuals, which is administered by the federal government. Quebec has different definitions, different rules and different exemptions. For Quebec to have a single tax return and for these taxes to be administered effectively, harmonization would be required. However, the Conservatives are not saying how this would happen. They are saying that, just like with the jobs, these details can be sorted out later, and that they believe in their leader. They cannot tell us how this harmonization would work. Would Quebec harmonize with the rest of the country, or vice versa? This was my first point.
Second, since it administers harmonized regimes, and like any good administrator, the CRA was able to achieve economies of scale. In fact, administrative costs for managing the provincial and territorial programs are covered by the federal government when the programs are identical.
We can agree that administering two programs that are not harmonized costs money. That is the rub. Harmonizing two programs comes at a cost. The Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec agree on that. However, if the Premier of Quebec asks for a refund for the administrative costs borne by Quebec for administering the federal program, as he said he would, that is where the two governments no longer agree. Why pay that kind of money?
The CRA is more than qualified to administer its federal tax program. We can see why the Government of Canada thinks that this type of scenario would not be beneficial to Canadians or Quebeckers.
Third, my colleagues across the way seem to be unaware of the CRA's considerable expertise internationally, even though they formed the government for 10 years. The Canada Revenue Agency is a world-class tax administrator and represents Canada among many international partners. This expertise is put to use for fighting tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance.
Over the past three years, our government has invested over $1 billion in the fight against tax evasion. Clearly, the Stephen Harper government, which the Conservatives are so proud of, never made fighting tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance a priority. In fact, the revenue minister of the day, Mr. Blackburn, even told the Journal de Montréal last summer in a burst of candour and honesty that, under Mr. Harper, the fight against tax evasion was never a priority and they did not even talk about it. It was not important to them. Obviously, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the contrary, the government is determined to ensure that all individuals and all businesses pay their fair share of taxes. We are determined to make it much harder for those who choose to avoid paying their taxes.
Because of the over $1 billion in investments that we made in the past three budgets, the CRA now has the tools and means to work and exchange financial information with tax authorities around the world.
We also greatly surpassed our goal to recover $319.5 million in additional tax revenues in 2017-18 by recovering $500 million in additional taxes. We made investments in the CRA to hire over 1,300 more auditors, enhance infrastructure development, improve the risk assessment system, and strengthen its capacity to target cases of tax evasion for investigation and criminal prosecution purposes.
As soon as the investments were announced in 2016, my colleague, the Minister of National Revenue, announced the creation of an independent advisory committee on offshore tax evasion and aggressive tax planning. Thanks to those investments, the CRA now has better data and better approaches for combatting tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance, and it is achieving better results.
Canadians and Quebeckers can be proud that this country now has one of the largest tax treaty networks in the world, with 93 tax treaties and 24 tax information exchange agreements with other nations around the globe.
The CRA also plays a leading role as a member of the Joint International Tax Shelter Information Centre, a network of close to 40 countries, in which Canada works closely with other tax administrations to coordinate tax compliance activities across the spectrum of international tax risks.
Our collaboration with our international partners is vital for successfully fighting tax evasion. However, only Canada can ratify international agreements. As a signatory to international tax treaties and tax information exchange agreements with other countries, Canada has a key role to play. Like the other provinces and territories, Quebec does not have the same legal means as Canada does to recover money it is owed that is held in other territories.
That means that if a taxpayer decides to transfer their assets to another province or country, Quebec would have neither the legal standing nor the extraterritorial jurisdiction to follow those assets outside Quebec's territory. However, as I mentioned, Canada does have that authority.
For all of these reasons, I invite my colleagues opposite to follow the NDP's lead and reconsider their position on this matter.