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.