Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to finally see a Conservative member take an interest in cracking down on fiscal evasion and propose to redeploy resources to that end.
That is precisely what we have done in our past three budgets. We hired more than 1,300 auditors to go after those who try to dodge their tax obligations in Canada and who resort to excessive tax avoidance.
However, for 10 years, while the member was here in this House as part of the Harper government, he and his colleagues did not care one iota about combatting tax avoidance. As I mentioned during my speech, former minister Blackburn said that they did not really talk about it and that it was not a priority for the Harper government.
Maybe something positive will come out of this debate: finally, a Conservative member woke up and said that we need to crack down on tax avoidance. It is too little, too late, unfortunately.