Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be joining this debate in this late evening on a Wednesday. At the outset, I am going to share a few observations about the debate so far on this Senate proposal as well as some observations about things that were said in the House.
First of all, this is a tax matter. We all remember that it was Motion No. 43, a duty of care motion, that was also put forward by the seconder of the bill in the House, the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge. At the time I spoke to it, the Canada Revenue Agency's customer service and the way it treats Canadians who are filing taxes continued to be deplorable, in my opinion. I thank the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for having sponsored another move toward getting fair treatment for Canadians. I think this is part of it. Understanding the tax gap between what is expected to be collected and what is actually being collected is a very important matter.
Second, it was Senator Percy Downe, from Prince Edward Island, who moved this proposal in the other place. Let it be said that when Conservatives find honest Liberals, we will work with them. We will support their ideas. In fact, it is a Conservative member of Parliament who has brought this Senate proposal to the floor of this House for, I expect and I hope, swift passage.
It is interesting that it is a Senate Liberal, also someone who was kicked out of the Liberal caucus, who is pushing for greater tax fairness and more tax knowledge for fellow Canadians. Perhaps it is something to do with people who speak the truth and are interested in the truth being kicked out of that caucus.
Bill S-243 is about reporting on unpaid income taxes. The bill is quite short, but it provides an opportunity to define the tax gap. I note that at least on one other occasion, members were wondering what we are asking the CRA to do. We are asking it to disclose more information about taxes that remain unpaid. Every single year there is a discrepancy between what the government expects to collect and is able to collect and taxes that remain outstanding. That discrepancy between the two accumulates over time. I know that many Canadians are interested in knowing more about why it is accumulating and who these people are who are not paying these taxes.
I especially like the definition of the tax gap being put forward in proposed subsection 88.1(1), which is an amendment to the Canada Revenue Agency Act, because it is a simple amendment. It is very clear what type of information will be provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
I have been a big believer in legislating more rules for civil servants, the bureaucracy, on how they do their work and report their work, both to Parliament and to the public. We spend far too much time in this House legislating what Canadians can do on an everyday basis, whether it is their hobbies or air travel. In general, we create a lot of rules that businesses, corporations and everyday people have to live up to. There is an expectation that they need to know what the rules are. We spend too little time legislating what the civil service does and the type of work it does on behalf of Canadians.
There is a Yiddish proverb that says, “Prayers go up and blessings come down”. It has been a prayer and a hope of mine that we will see more such private members' bills and more government bills, in fact, that would look after legislating what the civil service does and how it does its work, both in the collection of information and in the disclosure of information.
We see in this particular proposal the following:
The Minister shall provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with the data on the tax gap collected and compiled under subsection (2) and any additional data that the Parliamentary Budget Officer considers relevant to conducting a further analysis of the tax gap.
That has been an issue in the past for the PBO. Finance Canada and other departments have been unwilling to disclose information to the PBO. I am going to allow the work they do, because often I will send emails to them, sometimes late at night, asking specific questions about budget line items. We saw that when the member for Edmonton West added up different sections of the budget tables, they did not, in fact, add up.
It is thanks to the PBO that parliamentarians such as us are able to do that work. If we have a question and we want to double-check whether our math is correct or whether we understand a concept being advocated by or pushed forward by the government, we can check with the PBO whether it is true. If it is not true, they can then double-check with the departmental officials they have connections with.
When department officials refuse to disclose information being requested from the PBO, it is a great matter of concern to parliamentarians. We rely on the PBO in a lot of ways to provide us technical information and to ensure our calculations are in fact correct. Perhaps if Finance Canada had taken advantage of the PBO's expertise, it would not have had to table a new set of fiscal tables, updating a great deal of them in the past budget document.
However, this is about the tax gap. This would provide Canadians with an ability to understand what it is over time. It is of great interest. The member for Sherbrooke mentioned in his speech that three times there had been major scandals and there had been great interest from everyday Canadians and members of the public. Different transparency and anti-corruption organizations have mentioned that such information would be of value for the public to have.
There is already a lot of information that the government makes public. This particular one, though, is something I have not seen made available on an easy-to-understand basis. The way it is being laid out in the definition of the tax gap, proposed subsection 88.1(1), offers that opportunity for Canadians both to understand what is being calculated and how it is being calculated. From then on, it would be up to parliamentarians to decide what to do with that information. More information from the civil service is always a good thing. At the end of the day, we are all hoping for greater transparency from the CRA, both on what it expects to collect and what it is actually able to collect.
That brings me back to the finance committee, the committee of the House on which I sit. It is looking at Bill S-6, a Madagascar tax treaty. I asked a question of the officials there whether they had any ability in calculating and telling us which corporations in Canada would be affected by that tax treaty and whether an analysis had been done. It was not clear to me from the answers at the time whether it was done.
Prior to Bill S-6 being proposed, a tax gap would have existed, at least in my mind it would have existed, between potential tax planning by certain corporations and individuals who would do business in Madagascar and what would happen after the ratification of Bill S-6. I was told that this information may be collected at some point by the CRA or it may not. That, again, is the tax gap between what may happen if a tax treaty is introduced or not. Aggressive tax planning does happen. It is illegal to do so in jurisdictions that do business with Canada.
Canadians will benefit greatly from the tax gap. It is perfectly reasonable to ask the Canada Revenue Agency to make the calculation. Part of the benefit will be that if it gets into the practice of collecting information and providing it to both parliamentarians and members of the public, it will also force it to start actually collecting that information after the fact. That is of great interest and great benefit. It would allow Canadians and parliamentarians to make access to information requests, to better understand the methods it is using to calculate it and to see the email transmissions among different government officials on the tax gap. It would also help us understand the conviction rate, who is being chased, whether a systemic abuse of the system is going on and whether particular tax treaties with Canada are being abused, which we should perhaps look at again.
All of this publicly available information that we do not have right now should be available right now. I am a parliamentarian who makes a lot of access to information requests and has a lot of Order Paper questions. Therefore, the disclosure of information is important, the calculation in the first place. Too often in this place, the government comes back with a response saying that it does not collect information in that particular way and therefore it cannot answer the question. This Senate proposal, from a Liberal senator, Senator Percy Downe from Prince Edward Island, will do what I have been, like I said before in the Yiddish proverb, praying for, which is more rules on civil servants and bureaucrats, less rules on everyday Canadians and a greater disclosure of information to Canadians and parliamentarians. It is a blessing that is coming down to earth.
I ask all members to heartily support the bill. It is a great proposal and it would provide greater transparency of tax information.