House of Commons Hansard #418 of the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was plan.

Topics

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:15 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her comments and question.

We have the same concerns because insurance companies are not going to give their customers a handout. They will generally pass the cost on to them. That means it is Canadians who are going to pay for these natural disasters, for climate change and all the ensuing consequences, whether it is droughts or floods that cause mould problems. Our infrastructure will be severely tested. We must make investments to adapt to climate change and also take concrete action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In Quebec City, there is a problem with a streetcar project. Streetcars are a good thing because they reduce the number of cars on the road and reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the federal government is not honouring its commitment to this project. Its share of the funding is supposed to be $1.2 billion, but it has only contributed $400 million to date.

The only solution it has come up with is to take money away from Montreal and give it to Quebec City. I believe that there should be enough money to go around. Unfortunately, the formula used to calculate ridership does not meet the needs of Quebec City. I hope that this decision will be changed.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet NDP Hochelaga, QC

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke at length about the environmental consequences if we do not wake up right now. The green, sustainable economy is the fastest-growing economy in the world. Given that the Liberal federal government is not doing much to go green, it seems to me that we are wasting a great opportunity, not just for the environment, but for the economy as well.

Does the member agree with me?

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Alexandre Boulerice NDP Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC

Mr. Speaker, we are in a climate emergency. We have to take action to save the planet, our ecosystems and biodiversity and mitigate climate destabilization as much as possible. At the same time, we have an opportunity to create new technologies, new companies, new processes, new software, and better modes of transportation.

My colleague from Hochelaga is absolutely right. If we fail to act, other countries will. We are already lagging behind because we are living in the past. Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom are far more advanced than we are. These are good jobs that have yet to be created today and will be much harder to create in the future when they are filled by our foreign competitors.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today and add my voice to this debate on the government's motion, which seeks to, among other things, finally declare that we are in a climate emergency.

It is very interesting that the government motion quickly followed our motion, which was debated yesterday and today was voted down by the Liberals, because they wanted to author their own, weaker-worded motion. Nonetheless, I am glad that we are paying attention to this very urgent issue.

There is no debate that climate change is happening. It is human-caused and we have to face up to that fact. Yes, our climate has changed many times over earth's history, but it has never changed as quickly and at the rate it is now because of the very fact that we are pumping greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and they are reaching such concentrations that it is having dire consequences for how our planet's natural processes operate. If we continue down this path, we are on course to reach 4°C to 6°C of warming by the year 2100. It sounds like a small number, but it can have cataclysmic consequences.

I remember hosting a town hall on a national clean energy strategy and looking at scenarios of the planet warming 1°C, 2°C, 3°C or 4°C. When we get up to 3°C or 4°C, we are essentially looking at the disappearance of island nations. We can say goodbye to the country of Bangladesh. Many areas along the eastern seaboard of the United States will be inundated. The state of Florida will be gone, as will the state of Louisiana. If we think the current refugee crisis is bad, we should just wait until we have 800 million to one billion people who have to move.

In my province of British Columbia, we are seeing real economic costs as the forest fire budget every year is eating into provincial coffers. We have heard mention of what the insurance costs will be. Some of the most prized real estate in the country is in Vancouver. Vancouver International Airport is right beside the ocean, with the Fraser River flowing right by it. What are the costs going to be to save that piece of land when a flooding Fraser River is matched by rising sea levels? This has real economic costs.

In my own riding, in March, the Cowichan River, which is one of four designated heritage rivers in British Columbia, was at 30% of where it should have been. I counted on one hand the number of days of rain we got on Vancouver Island in the month of March, a month when, under normal circumstances, it would be raining pretty much every day. This puts our wild salmon at risk, because of course they depend on that river to spawn and continue the next line.

Therefore, we do have real costs, which is the frustrating thing. I feel that in today's debate there is a lot of discussion about the costs to people now, such as the cost of a carbon tax and the cost of upgrading things to make sure that we are on a path to a low-carbon future. However, the economic costs of doing nothing are going to absolutely dwarf anything we are talking about now. I have seen some estimates that climate change could cost anywhere up to 10% of the world's GDP. At that rate, we are not talking about billions of dollars; we are in fact talking about trillions of dollars.

Today's motion, which the Liberals have brought forward, roughly follows the same path of what we debated yesterday, with some key differences. Number one, there is no mention in today's motion of the Liberal government's continued subsidy of the oil and gas sector, to the tune of billions of dollars every year. Just imagine, Mr. Speaker, if we actually ended those subsidies and reinvested them in the renewable energy economy of the future. The Trans Mountain pipeline purchase was $4.5 billion of our money, and if the Liberals want to expand it, it could go up to $11 billion. Imagine if we had taken that money and put it in the renewable energy economy of the future, which, by the way, is now employing more and more Canadians, Canadians like those who work in the oil sands.

There is an amazing organization of oil sands workers, called Iron and Earth, who argue quite passionately that they have the skill sets as welders, pipefitters and electricians to transfer to the renewable energy economy, because they know that this is where our future lies.

This change is going to be forced on us one way or another. Therefore, our big choice here is whether we are reactive to that change, and change because it is being forced on us, or whether we seize the opportunity before us right now and make those important investments for the renewable energy economy of the future.

It is possible. We just need the political will. We have the technology. Every day in my riding, I see more electric cars. I see more solar panels on roofs. We have technology that allows for tidal power generation, coupled with wind turbines, solar power and geothermal. All of these, coupled with our existing hydroelectric facilities, can produce the electricity we need. Battery storage life is getting better by the year. The technology is there. We just need to have the political will to seize it and make sure that it is all working together, because ultimately, what we need to do is generate more electricity. It is possible to do it in a clean and renewable way.

It is going to take an absolutely herculean effort. I am talking about an effort on par with what this country did in World War II. We put women to work who had never really had positions in factories before. We basically retooled our entire economy to the war effort so that by the end of the Second World War, this country had the third-largest navy in the world. We had many people in uniform and tons of equipment, because we were united in a cause. This kind of fight is going to take the exact same type of effort through a combination of government working with the private sector, all working together toward a singular goal. We have to make that kind of investment.

People like to speak in this debate about how Canada's emissions are such a small part of the global average. I agree with that. However, our contribution in World War II was quite a small percentage. That did not stop us from joining in the fight with our allies, all working together. Canada did not stop sending soldiers because we thought our contribution was going to be insignificant. No. We were there from the get-go, and we saw it all the way to the end in 1945. That is the type of effort we are going to need, all working together and acknowledging that the problem is happening.

There are examples. In the state of Washington, just south of where I live, Governor Jay Inslee just announced an evergreen economy plan. He has set up a green bank that will have $90 billion in it. It is one of the most ambitious plans ever launched in the United States. There will be a wholesale effort, including renovating homes to make them more energy efficient, making sure that Washington state's electricity grid is all on renewables, and having a huge number of incentives to get people driving electric cars. We can call it the evergreen economy plan, a green new deal or whatever. I think we are all referring to the same thing. That is exactly what I, as a New Democrat member of Parliament, want to see us do, because we do not have a lot of time left. The clock is running out. We have to get to a point where Canada's emissions are measurably being reduced year after year, and we are currently not at that stage.

For me, it is personal, as it is with a lot of members of Parliament. I have three children. I have six-year-old twins and a 19-month-old. I have great concerns about the world they are going to inherit.

This is a moment where we have to put aside our differences and acknowledge that we have a way of doing this. This is not just virtue signalling, as I have heard some of my Conservative friends say. If we are going to actually take those first important steps of addressing this problem, the big thing we have to do is first acknowledge that there is a problem, that there is an emergency. However, so that this is not just about platitudes, we also have to back up that kind of emotion with strong, concrete actions. It can be done. We have the people. We have the skill sets. We have the technology. We just need to see the leadership in this place, this House of Commons, and show people that we are actually treating this issue with the seriousness it deserves.

There is a whole generation of kids out there in high school who are looking to us. They are striking every Friday. Let us rise to the challenge, meet their expectations, come together to do this and give it the justice it deserves.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Winnipeg South Manitoba

Liberal

Terry Duguid LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot in this House about the recently announced LNG initiative on the British Columbia coast, the largest private sector investment in Canadian history, which the NDP government in British Columbia and the federal government in Ottawa approve, and which will create 10,000 jobs. We have heard the leader of the NDP express his lack of support for that particular project, which will displace coal in China and create jobs.

This initiative is good for the environment in that it is displacing coal, and it is good for the economy. Why does the party opposite oppose it?

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I support a future in which we remove subsidies for oil and gas and put our resources into a renewable energy economy.

With respect to the Government of B.C., let me just tell the member that the premier of B.C. lives in my riding, and I could not be more proud of John Horgan's B.C. NDP government. We lived in a province under 16 years of Liberal rule, an unholy alliance of federal Conservatives and provincial Liberals. They have come together with the CleanBC program, supported by the B.C. Green Party, and are investing in retrofits and putting new electric cars on the road.

Yes, I have my personal views as a federal New Democrat. I believe our future lies in the renewable energy economy of the future, but the B.C. NDP government has done some amazing things with its CleanBC program, something I very much support.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is evident that my colleague is very passionate about this issue. I share some of his concerns, but nowhere in his speech did I hear mention of carbon capture and sequestration. A report by the International Panel on Climate Change last year said that in order to avoid further damage from climate change, countries need to embrace carbon capture and sequestration. I wonder if the member could speak on that matter and on whether he supports carbon capture and sequestration.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I am aware of that technology, but the scale at which it would have to be employed would be far beyond our resources.

In terms of sequestering carbon, all we need to do is plant more trees. We need to support our farmers, who are using amazing ecological methods to put more carbon in the soil through proper crop management techniques. I sit as the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I have listened to our farmers, who are on the front lines of climate change. They are doing some amazing things that need to be properly recognized. Through their careful agricultural management and crop rotation techniques, they are putting a lot of carbon back into the soil. I absolutely support that kind of work, recognizing the amazing work farmers across this country are doing every single day.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Mr. Speaker, I would like to see a little more transparency from the federal NDP. The last answer was interesting. The LNG project was supported wholeheartedly by the NDP government in British Columbia, and the Trans Mountain pipeline was supported wholeheartedly by the NDP government of Alberta, yet the national NDP outright opposed on both accounts.

I wonder if the member could explain very clearly to those who might be following the debate on the environment why the federal New Democrats are completely, 180°, at odds with the provincial NDP governments in both Alberta and B.C.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the parliamentary secretary was listening carefully when I addressed the very same question from his colleague on this topic. I answered very clearly that as a federal New Democrat, looking at the evidence before us, I put my support into a future that sees us getting rid of oil and gas subsidies and putting our workers to work in a just transition to the renewable energy economy of the future. My whole speech was about the available renewable energy technology that exists to make sure we get off fossil fuels. All we need is the political will to make it happen. That is what I support; that is what I will be fighting for; that is what I have always fought for and what I will be proud to continue to fight for in this Parliament.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:35 p.m.

Winnipeg South Manitoba

Liberal

Terry Duguid LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality

Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Repentigny.

Climate change is real. It is an urgent problem driven by human activity. Scientific data presented in the recent “Canada's Changing Climate Report” makes it clear that our country is warming at twice the global rate. In Canada's north, change is happening even faster.

We are seeing the devastating impacts of climate change across the country. Rivers are rising higher during floods. Droughts are parching crops. Forest fires are burning longer, hotter and more often.

Manitoba has already been hit hard by climate change. The 2011 and 2014 floods cost us some $1 billion each and forced the evacuation of thousands of people. This spring, parts of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick were devastated by floods. What used to be the flood of the century seems to be happening every few years now. Canadians are growing more and more concerned about the damaging and costly impacts of our destabilizing weather on our infrastructure, on our communities and on our environment.

Canadians expect their leaders to take action on the very real threats from climate change. The federal Liberal government's climate plan will achieve historic reductions in emissions through over 50 practical and affordable measures, including putting a price on pollution.

Our federal plan is fair and affordable. In the provinces where the federal price on pollution will apply, we are returning all the money collected back to Canadians. Let me be clear: The federal government is not keeping a cent. Ninety per cent is going right back to citizens through the climate action incentive tax rebate. The remaining 10% will help businesses, schools, hospitals, universities, municipalities and indigenous communities shift to a cleaner economy. An average family of four in my province of Manitoba will get $339 through its 2018 tax return under our federal plan. Most Canadian families will save more in taxes than they will pay in the carbon price increase. Citizens will also have a greater incentive to make greener choices.

We know that a price on pollution is the most affordable and effective measure we can take to bring down harmful emissions. In 2018, William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won a Nobel Prize for their work on the economics of climate change. Nordhaus argues that the most sensible response to climate change is to price carbon pollution. Romer asserts that the problem is not knowing what to do; the problem is getting a consensus to act, which we do not seem to have in this chamber.

Another key part of the federal government's plan to tackle climate change is setting ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets that will see Canada's emissions reduced by 30% from our 2005 levels. By 2030, we aim to reduce our output from 815 megatonnes of emissions to 523 megatonnes.

We intend to phase out our coal power by 2030 as well. Coal power that causes pollution today results in close to 10% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, smog from coal power plants can lead to asthma and respiratory illness, especially for children and seniors, and it adds to the burden on our health care system. Accelerating the phasing out of coal-fired electricity in Canada by 2030 will help reduce carbon pollution by more than five megatonnes in 2030, the equivalent of moving 1.3 million cars off the roads. It will also mean cleaner air and healthier lives for Canadians.

Through our budget 2019, we are making zero-emission vehicles accessible for more Canadians and are creating a new home retrofit program to help people lower their electricity and energy bills.

Our federal government is collaborating with scientists and economists on practical actions that work. We know this makes good ecological and economic sense. The whole world is looking for clean solutions, and the market for those solutions is estimated to be worth $26 trillion. That is bigger than the Canadian, U.S. and U.K. economies combined. A price on pollution gives Canadian businesses an added incentive to innovate, compete and lead in the dawning low-carbon economy. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and we cannot let Conservative politicians hold Canada back.

The time for debate over what to do about climate change has come and gone. The science is clear and the window of opportunity to safeguard our planet as a healthy home for future generations is closing. Now is the time to come together, as our Minister of Environment and Climate Change said today. Why, then, are Conservative politicians across this country ignoring evidence, putting roadblocks in front of positive climate action and using this issue to divide Canadians? It reminds me of the Stephen Harper decade of environmental backsliding and muzzling of scientists.

While a cabal of provincial Conservative leaders like Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe wish to spend time and money fighting carbon pricing in the courts instead of fighting climate change, the federal Conservatives are still choosing to ignore science.

I am very disappointed in my own premier, Brian Pallister, who has joined the cabal by flip-flopping on his original position to put a price on pollution. Not only are the Conservatives ignoring the reality of climate change, but they are also misleading Canadians. Recently, Conservative MPs mailed a tax guide to households that does not tell people how to claim their climate action incentive rebate. That could cost a family hundreds of dollars if it is tricked into not claiming what it is entitled to. The Conservatives say they are on the side of the middle class, but how could they deny money to middle-class citizens who are entitled to those funds?

The fact is that, in 2019, if a government does not have a plan for the environment, a government does not have a plan for the economy. Conservative politicians will spread myths and misinformation about fighting climate change, but by investing in the clean economy now, we are actually creating the jobs of tomorrow and helping to lower the huge future costs to society resulting from climate-related disasters.

The Government of Canada proposes a motion that recognizes that climate change is a real, urgent crisis caused by human activity that impacts our environment, biodiversity, economy and health.

Fighting climate change is the greatest collective challenge we face. It is a tough battle and we cannot let ourselves be distracted by partisan posturing. The world is changing, and one day soon we will pass it on to our kids and our grandkids. We owe them our very best, most well-informed, most united effort. Supporting our federal government's motion to declare a national climate emergency and commit to meeting the Paris targets is the first united step we can take to fight climate change together and protect the environment that we as Canadians love.

I hope all parties will join us in supporting the motion.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Conservative

Dane Lloyd Conservative Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address something from the previous speaker. There are actually at least four major carbon capture and sequestration projects in Canada. We have Carbon Engineering Ltd., out of Squamish, B.C., which is literally sucking carbon out of the atmosphere and turning it into diesel fuels.

We also have the North West Refining upgrade in my riding of Sturgeon River—Parkland. It will take 1.2 million tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere with its carbon capture project.

Then we have the Boundary Dam project in Estevan, Saskatchewan, taking one million tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere. Then we have the Capital Power Shepard project, which I had the pleasure of giving an award to this week. It is about groundbreaking technology that is turning carbon into carbon nanotubes, which can be used as an ingredient in cement and many other projects.

Canada is a world leader in carbon capture. Why is the Liberal government not doing anything to facilitate carbon capture technology? Is it just because it is opposed to the oil and gas industry?

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Liberal

Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB

Mr. Speaker, we should be using every technology known to humankind to address our carbon footprint and bringing it to this fight of our lives. My understanding is that there has been federal support in the past for a number of the projects the member mentioned, and I welcome his comments.

The EnvironmentGovernment Orders

5:45 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The hon. parliamentary secretary will have three minutes remaining for questions and comments when the House next gets back to debate on the motion.

It being 5:46 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of Private Members' Business as listed on today's Order Paper.

The House resumed from April 3 consideration of the motion that Bill S-243, An Act to amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act (reporting on unpaid income tax), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

5:45 p.m.

NDP

Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to Bill S-243. Although the bill was introduced here, in the House, it is actually a Senate initiative sponsored by Senator Percy Downe, for whom I have a great deal of respect. Back when I was the NDP finance critic, I had the pleasure of working with him on tax evasion issues. I know this issue is really important to him.

In the previous Parliament, the Standing Committee on Finance studied the tax gap, which is the difference between what the government does collect and what it should collect. That is money the government misses out on because of tax evasion, aggressive tax avoidance, the use of tax havens and so on.

I remember when the committee was debating it, we had witnesses from all over the world, including the United States, Great Britain and various European OECD countries, as well as Canadian experts. We heard from experts on taxation, banking and various organizations.

It became apparent that we needed to measure the tax gap. However, at the time, the Conservative government and the Conservative members of the committee had no interest in moving forward. They told us that it was impossible, that it would require too much work, and that any data we might gain from the whole exercise would not justify the resources required to see it through. I do not think that was true, and the Liberals who were on the committee at the time agreed.

However, as soon as they took office, the Liberals became reluctant to get the Canada Revenue Agency to be transparent and to start measuring the tax gap. Yes, they ended up doing it. Yes, the CRA is now doing some hasty calculations to try to tell us how much tax revenue is likely being lost.

However, most stakeholders do not believe the amount is accurate. As part of a review of all tax measures, the CRA claimed that the government is currently losing about $7 billion or $8 billion in tax revenue. Most tax fairness organizations do not believe that. The Conference Board of Canada even conducted a study on measuring the tax gap, which found that it may actually be closer to $45 billion or $47 billion, if we rely mainly on how much tax revenue is currently being lost by the United States, which I would remind members has a lot more resources to deal with this issue than the CRA does.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer now has the authorization, power and desire to measure the tax gap. For two years, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and his office were asking for authorization to proceed with an accurate measurement of the tax gap. For two years, the Liberal government refused to give them the information they needed. For two years, the Parliamentary Budget Officer did not have the information needed to proceed with this important study, a matter on which the CRA has no credibility, and yet, the government claimed the whole time to support the office.

Here is why I believe the CRA has no credibility. During the entire time that I had to deal with the agency, all I saw was a lack of transparency. Not only did I find that they were unwilling to provide information, but I also observed that they were withholding it.

Not that long ago, at the beginning of this Parliament, I sat on the Standing Committee on Finance. Among other things, we studied the whole scheme involving KPMG and the Isle of Man. After a handful of committee meetings, we were no longer allowed to examine the processes that KPMG had been involved in.

When CRA representatives testified before the committee, they gave every possible excuse for not providing the information. They told us that it would breach confidentiality, that privacy could be at risk and that it could not give us information that KPMG deemed to be privileged. There was every reason to deny us the information, but none of them were valid.

We could have done what the U.S. usually does, which, in the case of KPMG, was to use the committee's authority to issue subpoenas requesting that KPMG officials testify and compelling them to do so.

Both the Canada Revenue Agency and its minister had a hand in that.

The minister does not have much credibility. Throughout this Parliament, she repeatedly told us that the government and the Canada Revenue Agency had taken steps, but that turns out not to be the case.

For example, the minister repeatedly said that the government invested $1 billion to fight tax evasion and had recovered $25 billion, but that turned out not to be true. The government did not recover $25 billion; it hoped to recover $25 billion. As it turns out, “hope to recover” is exactly right because the government is far from hitting that target at the moment. Then the minister said the government really had taken the necessary measures and that CRA had hired 1,300 new auditors. Well, we did the math, and so did the media, and we figured out that CRA hired 192 new auditors, not 1,300.

The Canada Revenue Agency told us that it answers 90% of all calls within two minutes. The Auditor General begged to differ. The truth is that 34% of all callers actually get someone on the line, and a third of all callers are given incorrect information.

It is very hard to believe everything coming out of the Canada Revenue Agency. It is very hard to lend them credibility. That is why we need an independent study. I do not believe the numbers that the Canada Revenue Agency came up with in the course of its study of the so-called tax gap. I would have more confidence in the numbers from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, if he has access to the data that should be made accessible to him through this bill.

Percy Downe, the senator who introduced the bill, has a great deal of credibility in the area. He made this his pet issue and did not make a big spectacle out of it. He just wants to get to the bottom of this. He realizes that here in Canada, the Canada Revenue Agency is a problem.

The CRA's approach to collecting tax revenue across the country is problematic. The senator recognizes, as we do, that the CRA is acting arbitrarily. It changes its approach to collecting personal income tax depending on the individual's level of wealth. I am not making that up. It was in the Auditor General's 2018 report, which notes a lack of consistency in the CRA's collection processes.

Two different taxpayers will be treated in two different ways. That is not professional. It is unfair and perpetuates the perception that the CRA and the Government of Canada treat taxpayers differently based on their wealth or status.

This is a major problem because it indicates that this is a two-tiered system. In this system, the government will try to reach an out-of-court settlement with people who have the means to defend themselves. That is actually what we have seen. The government tries to resolve the situation by closing the file, because it will be too expensive to recover money from people who have the means to defend themselves. However, in the case of those who cannot defend themselves, the government takes quick action to recover the money.

We must standardize the way the agency does things and, above all, take away the Canada Revenue Agency's authority to assess the gap, because it will likely not do a very credible job. We must routinely ask the government to do its job, to exercise due diligence and to provide on a regular and ongoing basis the information requested by the Parliamentary Budget Officer to evaluate the tax gap.

That is why I am proud to support this bill.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

5:55 p.m.

Conservative

Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful to be able to stand and speak on behalf the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge. He is a dear friend, and I believe that this is a very important piece of legislation that he is bringing forward here in the House. It is an honour to speak on it.

I would also like to thank Senator Percy Downe for introducing this bill in the Senate. It is a shame that the government plans to oppose it, but I hope government members will listen to all of the reasons that this bill makes sense for the government and for Canadians.

It is timely to be speaking about Bill S-243 now, as the majority of Canadians just finished filing their taxes with the Canada Revenue Agency. We also just found out that the Canada Revenue Agency wrote off $133 million owed by a single taxpayer.

CRA employees discussed the large writeoff in an internal memo in September of 2018, and the media reported on this memo in April. However, we do not know who the taxpayer is or whether it is a person or a corporation. We also do not know whether this writeoff is related to government subsidies, which is something Canadians should know.

The aim of this bill is to keep the CRA accountable for tax collection efforts. It would also require the CRA to report on the tax gap, which is the difference between taxes owing and taxes actually collected. The bill would also require the CRA to publish information on convictions for domestic and offshore tax evasion. Data shows that the offshore tax gap for the 2014 tax year was between $0.8 billion and $3 billion.

The CRA has published information about the tax gap related to the goods and services tax. In 2014, here the offshore tax gap was estimated to be about $4.9 billion. The CRA has also shared the domestic personal income tax gap for that same year, 2014, at $8.7 billion. In that one year, the money owed for the tax gap, which could have been as high as $16 billion, could have funded many programs or eased the tax burden for many Canadians.

Conservatives believe in making life more affordable for Canadians and in keeping taxes as low as possible to stimulate the economy. When the government loses a significant amount of money because of a tax gap, it means that taxes could be raised for the rest of us. This penalizes law-abiding Canadians.

I support Senator Downe's bill, which is sponsored by the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge here in the House, because it makes sense and makes the CRA and those Canadians not living up to their responsibility to pay taxes more accountable.

Some Canadians are concerned that reporting on the tax gap could threaten their privacy, but this bill balances the privacy of individuals with transparency and accountability for the CRA. The information would be reported to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, so its intent is not to name and shame average Canadians.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia all report on their tax gaps. These governments all indicate that they report this information because it helps their revenue departments understand how and why non-compliance occurs. This information is helpful to policy-makers, who can then make better-informed decisions about tax policy and also help the government better manage its resource allocation.

Canada should have this system. Mandating measurement of the tax gap ensures that future governments and parliaments have all of the information necessary to take action on the tax gap.

Many of us are aware that offshore tax evasion is a problem in Canada. Almost 1,000 Canadian taxpayers, including individuals, corporations and trusts, were named in the Panama papers three years ago.

The CRA told media last month that it had identified 894 taxpayers and had finished reviewing 525 of these cases, resulting in $14.9 million in federal taxes and penalties. This number will rise as audits continue.

Although the CRA told the media the amount of taxes assessed, it did not say how much of that money has actually been collected. Senator Downe's bill, if passed, would require the CRA to report that type of information to Canadians. As I mentioned before, this type of information would be incredibly helpful to our policy-makers. Many other countries use this information, and Canadians would be better served if our policy-makers also had this kind of information.

Most Canadians work hard all year and diligently file their taxes. These are honest people who would never attempt to cheat the government. However, we see wealthy Canadian individuals and corporations attempt to cheat the tax system all the time.

Tax money is used to fund services we enjoy, such as health care, transit and roads. The CRA should be able to say how much money it has collected as a result of the Panama papers. This is in the Canadian public interest.

Similarly, it should be allowed and able to tell us why $133 million was written off for a single taxpayer. That money could provide significant funding for public services, and Canadians deserve to know why this taxpayer or corporation received special treatment while the rest of us diligently work to pay our fair share.

I have had many constituents complain about dealings with the CRA, including poor levels of service or the agency repeatedly requesting documentation that has already been provided to a different branch. The Office of the Taxpayers' Ombudsman, which operates at arm's length from the CRA, has experienced an increase in complaints over the last few years. In 2017, the taxpayers' ombudsman said the biggest complaints were: first, the struggle to even get through to the CRA call centre, which can be a huge headache, especially around tax time. Other complaints included receiving inconsistent and incorrect information from the call centre agent and the lack of information sharing between different branches of the CRA. Many Canadians have been asked to produce the same information or documents more than once, because the person's file was not properly shared between departments.

The taxpayers' ombudsman called these problems “systemic” and said there are other deeply rooted problems. The CRA acknowledges that it needs to do more to better serve Canadians, and representatives from the agency will be travelling across Canada over the next month to conduct in-person consultations on how the CRA can improve its services. I have no doubt they will receive plenty of feedback. I am hopeful that the CRA will take this feedback and then implement it to create a better-run system, which Canadians deserve.

I know it is not just the CRA that has these problems. A recent Auditor General report found that other government departments, including immigration, employment insurance and the Canada pension plan, did not answer their phones for the millions of Canadians who called them in 2017 and 2018. It is obvious the government needs to make huge improvements to give Canadians the accessible service they require and deserve.

I hope these consultations by the CRA are fruitful and we will see a service improvement in the near future. I know how seriously Canadians take the CRA, except for wealthy Canadians who keep their money in offshore accounts without thinking of the consequences. For many Canadians, getting a letter from the CRA is anxiety-inducing, and dealing with audits and investigations can cause high levels of stress.

When Canadians owe the CRA money, most work to pay that money back, whether it is through installments or a lump sum payment. Most people would not dream of running out on the bill, so to speak, so they should not be unfairly penalized when corporations and wealthy Canadians run out on their tax obligations.

If this bill passes, it means increased accountability for the CRA, which is in the best interests of taxpayers. The changes proposed in this bill require the CRA to report on all convictions for tax evasion in addition to reporting the tax gap, as I mentioned earlier. This data would be reported to the Minister of National Revenue in the CRA's annual report, which is tabled in Parliament. The Minister of National Revenue is also required to provide the Parliamentary Budget Officer with data to calculate the tax gap.

These amendments, which would be inexpensive to implement, would increase transparency, which the government allegedly values. Publicly available reports on the gap between income taxes owed and taxes collected will provide a metric for judging the efficacy of measures to combat income tax evasion. This is important information for Canadians to have access to. Many other western nations publicly post this information. Canada is already behind standard practice in this regard. Conservatives support any measures to enhance the effectiveness and accountability of the public service.

Bill S-243 is a common-sense amendment to the Canada Revenue Agency Act, and I support the amendments.

I thank Senator Downe for his work on this bill, and the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for helping to get the bill through the House of Commons. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill today.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:05 p.m.

King—Vaughan Ontario

Liberal

Deb Schulte LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by thanking the member from the other place, who initiated this bill, for his efforts to bring attention to Canada's tax gap through Bill S-243, and the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, who sponsored this bill so that we can have a healthy debate on it in this House.

Our government agrees that when the tax gap information is publicly available, it demonstrates a commitment to transparency and helps to identify opportunities to make a fairer tax system for all Canadians. Bill S-243 has put a spotlight on the importance of understanding Canada's tax gap. We thank the senator for that.

The Minister of National Revenue has been very clear about her commitment to fighting tax evasion and to measuring the tax gap, helping to shine a spotlight on the cost of tax evasion.

I find it a bit rich to hear the Conservative opposition members speak in support of the bill. They seem to have completely erased from their memory the Harper government's attacks on the PBO and the utter refusal to consider studying the tax gap. As a matter of fact, I would like to draw the attention of members to what the former vice-chair of the public accounts committee and Conservative MP for Don Valley West, John Carmichael, said in 2014, when talking about the tax gap. He decided to explain to the opposition the mechanics of measuring the tax gap in order “to explain why deriving such an estimate would be overly complex, inefficient, and a total waste of time.” He followed this statement by saying that studying the tax gap was “nonsensical”.

Let us talk about something that is nonsensical: the Conservatives pretending to care about measuring the tax gap and wanting more transparency for Canadians. We have 10 years of Harper's track record on tax evasion to know that studying the tax gap is no priority for that side of the House. Unlike my colleagues on the other side, I am very proud of my government's track record on this issue.

While we agree with the spirit of this bill, due to the requirements and importance of protecting the confidentiality of taxpayers' information, and our concerns related to the proposed legislative vehicle in this bill, our government cannot support it.

This bill asks to change the Parliamentary Budget Officer's model of access to information by compelling the Minister of National Revenue to provide data to the PBO through amendments to the Canada Revenue Agency Act. This act is not the right legislative vehicle to change the PBO's model of access to information. lt would pose concerns for the confidentiality of taxpayer information. The current report to the PBO is issued in a format that protects taxpayers' information. This bill would also create an unnecessary administrative burden for the CRA, as the tax gap is already being reported on.

Allow me to elaborate. To start, Bill S-243 would require the Minister of National Revenue to collect, compile, analyze and abstract statistics on the tax gap every three years and to publish them in the annual report to Parliament of the Canada Revenue Agency. The CRA already publishes research and estimates on various components of the tax gap and has a strong public commitment to continue to do so. Therefore, adding a legislative requirement to collect, compile, analyze and abstract statistics on the tax gap in the CRA's annual departmental results report is unnecessary.

The CRA already has a dedicated team in place to study the tax gap. Through the work of this team, the CRA has published four reports pertaining to the tax gap. Unlike the allegations of the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques in his speech, the government took immediate action. In June 2016, the CRA published a conceptual study on tax gap estimation. At the same time, it published the tax gap estimates for the goods and services harmonized sales tax. In June 2017, the CRA published tax gap estimates on domestic reporting and payment non-compliance by individuals. In June 2018, it published a report on tax gap estimates on offshore non-compliance by individuals on the international scale. In June 2019, the CRA will release its fifth report on the tax gap, which will provide information about corporate income tax non-compliance.

These reports are published on the Canada.ca website. They describe the methodology the CRA used to estimate the tax gap. They also provide information on the CRA's compliance efforts to reduce these gaps. Collectively, these reports provide the basis for a more comprehensive tax gap estimate.

Therefore, yes, we agree that the tax gap is important to measure. That is why it is already being done.

I would now like to bring to members' attention the requirement in the bill for the CRA to provide the PBO with the data collected and compiled on the tax gap as well as any additional data the PBO considers relevant to conducting a further analysis of the tax gap.

Members may know that the CRA already provides the PBO with information on this tax gap, and it is in a format that does not compromise taxpayer confidentiality. This bill simply does not amend the appropriate act. In fact, these proposed changes run the risk of creating confusion about the PBO's existing legislated access to information. Indeed, amending a departmental statute such as the Canada Revenue Agency Act would not broaden access to taxpayer data or information. This bill should require significant and consequential amendments to legislation directly related to providing taxpayer data, such as section 241 of the Income Tax Act or section 295 of the Excise Tax Act to make such a change, but it does not.

What this would not change, however, is the CRA's commitment to continue to work closely with the PBO, the Privacy Commissioner and Statistics Canada to determine how best to share the relevant information necessary for the work of the PBO while also protecting the confidentiality of taxpayers' information.

Last, I would like to touch on the stipulation in Bill S-243 that would require the CRA to provide in its departmental results report a detailed list of all convictions for tax evasion, including a separate list for overseas tax evasion. Similar to the commitment to reporting the tax gap, the CRA has already been providing this information at Canada.ca since 2017. The available information identifies individuals, corporations and trusts convicted in the courts for tax evasion or for failing to file income tax returns. It includes convictions that have links to money and assets located offshore.

The CRA's departmental performance report already includes information about convictions. The CRA also offers a service that notifies subscribers about enforcement activities. Given these efforts, it is clear that the CRA already provides significant information about its enforcement activities, just like what is being requested in Bill S-243.

Once again, I thank the member from the other place who initiated this bill for his commitment to ensuring that Canadians have greater access to information about non-compliance. Our government will continue to report on the tax gap to ensure that taxpayer information is and stays confidential and will continue to remain transparent in our fight against tax evasion. That is what we have been doing for the past three and a half years and that is what we will continue to do.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:10 p.m.

Conservative

Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Nose Hill, AB

Mr. Speaker, for the people watching today, what Bill S-243 would do, in technical jargon, is amend the Canada Revenue Agency Act to require that the CRA report on all convictions for tax evasion, including international tax evasion, and that the tax gap or the difference between estimated taxes owing and actual taxes collected be included in the annual report it submits to the Minister of National Revenue for tabling in Parliament. It would require the minister to provide data for calculating the tax gap to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

The Conference Board of Canada estimates the tax gap at between $9 billion and $50 billion. That is a lot of money. What could that be used for? It could be used to reduce the deficit, spend money on things that we need and maybe not tell veterans in Canada that they are asking for more than we can give.

I find the parliamentary secretary's speech ridiculously hilarious and I do not even know how to summarize her defence of voting against this bill. I am going to give this lecture to the CRA bureaucrats in the lobby who wrote that audacious speech that she did not even bother to edit before coming in here and reading it.

To the CRA bureaucrats watching, first, none of us on this side of the House would be the man and then take the man's talking points into the House of Commons to argue why CRA bureaucrats would not provide this data for not doing their job, number one. That is just ridiculous. It is actually laughable.

Second, some poor political staffer put the one attack line in her speech. My colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge made a wonderful comment, which was summarized as follows: “Conservatives should be ashamed of themselves for not doing 10 years ago the thing that we are not going to do today.”

Come on. We know that this is important, which is why my colleague has spoken against it, but the delicious part of the argument to not support it was the argument of privacy for financial records.

I am going to give credit in a nod of bipartisanship to this point. The lobby coordinator of the New Democratic Party, Anthony Salloum, said it is really rich for the Liberals to be making an issue about the privacy of personal banking records when it was they who wanted Statistics Canada to dive deep into people's individual banking records and then stood day after day in the House of Commons saying it was all good. They said there was no problem with the government being able to see if people went to the 7-Eleven at 10 o'clock at night and bought a delicious blue Slurpee, because that is the role of government.

They did that for a month. Day after day, they said it is the role of government, that the man should be able to see everything people buy, that there is no issue with privacy and everything is A-okay. Now, today, they are saying that Canada Revenue Agency bureaucrats are all of a sudden concerned with privacy.

As a member of Parliament, I have to hire someone in my office just to do casework, and I have had cases in which people had their files locked in some CRA bureaucrat's desk or left by the water cooler. The incompetence of this bureaucracy is staggering at best and irresponsible at worst. Anytime somebody stands in the House of Commons to talk about privacy, that person should at least read the speech that the bureaucrats provided and think about whether it makes the individual sound like a super-villain. I think the parliamentary secretary forgot to do that today.

In all seriousness, we need to ensure that we are addressing the issue of the tax gap, because it is a source of revenue that we are not tapping into and it disadvantages Canadians who are paying taxes fairly if we are not collecting taxes in an appropriate manner. In fact, it creates a disproportionate burden of taxpaying on one aspect of Canadian society as opposed to another.

Since I have a moment to talk about the Liberal government's ability to prosecute tax evaders, I am going to point to a CBC story in 2018 that talked about governments around the world being able to recover $500 million in taxes thanks to the Panama papers.

However, the article said that this is in stark contrast to the CRA's effectiveness at catching offshore tax cheats and comes in the wake of a CBC investigation that found that few, if any, of the criminal convictions the agency cites in defence of its record have anything to do with offshore tax evasion.

In fact, of the court cases the government had cited in Parliament to defend its record on cracking down on offshore tax evasion, a 2017 CBC article said that few, if any, had anything to do with millionaires hiding money in overseas tax havens.

As a further point of proof, the parliamentary secretary's boss, the Minister of National Revenue, or the minister of bluster, since she has a tendency to stand in the House and repeat nonsensical talking points that have nothing to do with the question asked, said in 2016 that her agency had already started to identify 45 targets for audits. However, three years later there are no tangible outcomes.

The nice thing about this bill is that it would force the bureaucrats who wrote that very staid and weird speech to determine what our tax gap is on an annual basis and help ensure that Canada is retrieving those taxes, so that complying Canadians do not shoulder this burden of taxes on their own.

I want to point out the government's hypocrisy. When it saw that it was potentially losing billions of dollars to tax evasion, its action was to increase taxes on law-abiding Canadians. In terms of the results of its tax increases, my colleague, the shadow minister for finance, made a wonderful intervention in the House that is worth repeating.

He stated that the CRA data that had recently been released demonstrated that “in the first year after the tax increase took effect, the government actually collected $4.6 billion less from the wealthiest 1%.”

He went on to say:

Finance Canada released documents almost exactly a year ago today in its annual financial report, on September 19, 2017, in which it revealed almost exactly the same phenomenon. Revenues went down from the wealthiest 1%.

As my colleague pointed out, the government said that this was all “due to one-time factors”, but we know there were some wealthy individuals who moved money around to avoid paying their fair share.

It is worth pointing out that one of those individuals was the Minister of Finance himself; the minister of the french fry yacht. He announced a tax increase to take effect on January 1, 2016. He sold shares in his own company, Morneau Shepell, just 30 days before that, in order to ensure his capital gain would be taxed at the earlier, lower rate and he would not have to pay the same higher taxes he imposed on everyone else.

We see the Liberals' record and the absolute ridiculousness of making the argument on privacy after they were going to allow Statistics Canada to look at Canadians' personal banking records. We see the track record of the Minister of Finance on this. We understand that bureaucrats are not motivated to have transparency in terms of their efficacy. The role of the executive branch is to go to bureaucrats and thank them for their public service and let them know that it has a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers and is going to make these changes. This is what we need to do in this place.

By voting against this bill, we understand what real change means to the Liberal government. It means absolutely nothing.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge has up to five minutes for his right of reply.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:20 p.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

Mr. Speaker, it is a tremendous honour and privilege to sponsor a bill in this place.

First, I want to acknowledge and thank Senator Percy Downe for his passion on this issue and for obtaining unanimous support in the other place for the bill and giving me the opportunity to sponsor it in the House.

I want to thank my dear friends, the member for Edmonton Riverbend and the member for Calgary Nose Hill, for their speeches tonight. I also want to thank my friend, the member for Calgary Shepard, who spoke in the first hour of debate on the bill, and indeed the other members who spoke in support of the bill, in particular the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, who spoke tonight, and the member for Sherbrooke, who spoke in the first hour. I would also like to thank the members for Châteauguay—Lacolle and Winnipeg North as well as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue, who also participated in the debate.

The bill would allow the Parliamentary Budget Officer to measure a problem that all parties acknowledge exists. As the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques noted, the Auditor General has repeatedly called out the Canada Revenue Agency for not treating Canadians the same way it treats those who file taxes offshore.

When he said that, I was reminded that the CRA, in its self-audit, believed that its call centre was operating just fine. It took a report from the Auditor General to reveal that it was a complete disaster. Without giving the Parliamentary Budget Officer the tools it has asked for, we are asking it, with the misleading information the CRA hands over, to be the final word on the scope and scale of this problem. That is not acceptable. It is not good enough. It is not good enough for Canadians, and it is really just more of the same.

I take exception to the parliamentary secretary castigating my motives as a Conservative in bringing forward, under Private Members' Business, the bill. As was pointed out by the member for Calgary Nose Hill, she essentially said, “Shame on the Conservatives”. Because we did not do this for the 10 years we were in government, she said we should be ashamed for saying that this is important, even as the Liberals plan to vote against the bill. Only a Liberal could say this and not understand the hypocrisy and ridiculousness of that position.

I was not part of the former Parliament. However, despite the previous government's incredible track record and that Canadians are now yearning for a return to a Conservative government, I am comfortable admitting that not every single problem under the sun was solved during the 10 years of the Conservative government. Tens years was not long enough to undo everything done by the previous Liberal government. It was not long enough to solve every problem in the world.

All speakers on the Liberal side claimed to support the motivation behind the bill and claimed to care about the problem it would solve, yet they came up with excuse after excuse, which is all we heard in the parliamentary secretary's speech, for why we should not pass it and should not bother. Shame on the Liberals if, as has been indicated to me by the minister, they reject the bill tonight.

Again, I want to thank Percy Downe for his advocacy on this and thank all members who participated in the debate on the bill.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

No.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Bruce Stanton

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers ActPrivate Members' Business

6:25 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.