moved for leave to introduce Bill C-448, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (supply of digital content).
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to introduce my bill. Just yesterday, my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and I were in Montreal, where we pledged to introduce a bill to fix a problem with the Excise Tax Act. This is that bill.
Bill C-448 amends the Excise Tax Act to close the loophole that allows Netflix and other digital content distributors not to collect GST even though all other digital content distributors in Canada do. Netflix is the best known of the companies that use this loophole. This bill would also apply to all other foreign digital content distributors that, like Netflix, do not abide by the same tax rules as Canadian companies.
The purpose of the bill is to level the playing field so the same taxation rules apply to everyone. I urge the government to take its cue from this bill and make it its own so we can fix the problem at last.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)