Madam Speaker, I first want to commend the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford on his bill and his speech.
I will begin my speech by saying that the Bloc Québécois agrees with the spirit of this bill. No one can oppose efforts to prevent Canada's public nest egg from being invested in companies that behave unethically either here or abroad. We should not encourage companies that break the law either here or abroad. The managers of Canadian pension funds should be no exception.
This bill makes me want to question the leaders of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, or CPPIB. I would be interested in talking to them because I do not understand why the CPPIB is currently investing in corrupt companies.
This bill is worthwhile, but I would be surprised if it had much of an impact on the CPPIB's current investments. I will be talking not only about what passing this bill would mean, but also about some things that I would like to see added to it, should it be passed by the House.
First, I would like to talk about the $600 million-plus invested in shares in oil and gas companies. In Canada, transportation and oil and gas development account for over half, or 52%, of our emissions. Alberta pollutes more than Quebec and Ontario combined.
Our retirement funds need to get with the program and stop investing in sectors that make it harder for us to achieve the Paris Agreement targets. The CPPIB should take its cue from the people in charge of the Quebec pension plan. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which is responsible for the Government and Public Employees Retirement Plan Fund, has a plan to reduce investment in polluting industries that is much more ambitious than the CPPIB's. In 2017, together with 11 partners from all over the world, the Caisse launched the Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, whose members are working to transition their portfolios to net-zero emissions by 2050. The Caisse also has a plan to reduce its carbon footprint by 25% per dollar invested by 2025. I see potential for a good conversation about this with the CPPIB, one that might persuade it to see the Caisse's strategy as a very viable option.
I would also like to talk to them about their decision to invest $900 million in Calpine Corporation. As many people know, Quebec wants to become the battery of North America by exporting its hydroelectricity to the north-eastern United States.
It is easy to imagine the positive impact this would have on reducing GHG emissions, increasing Quebec's collective prosperity and meeting the Paris targets. Everybody would benefit. This would be the equivalent of taking 700,000 cars off the road. However, Calpine produces electricity from gas. It has invested $600 million to oppose Hydro-Québec's plan to build a high tension power line to provide Americans with clean, abundant and cheaper electricity. It is rallying the public to call for a referendum to block the project. It is unbelievable. Canadian taxpayers are investing their money in fossil fuels in the United States and, in the process, also financing a protest movement against a Quebec green energy project.
I would also like to address another topic with the board, and that is the fight against tax havens. Currently the government is being complicit by entering into non-double taxation agreements with countries that are known tax havens. It is being complicit by tinkering with the rules, such as allowing Barbados to be used as a tax haven under an obscure rule, which goes against the treaty signed between Canada and that small Caribbean country. While its economy is not very big, Barbados is one of the places with the most direct foreign investment coming from Canada. It is outrageous that the government is allowing this to happen.
During the last Parliament, I moved a motion calling for this loophole to be closed, but every Liberal, except one, and every Conservative voted against it.
I will quote the spokesman for Collectif Échec aux paradis fiscaux, Claude Vaillancourt:
At the height of the Panama papers scandal, the Prime Minister publicly boasted that he would be keeping an eye on Canadians who might be tempted by tax avoidance, but now he is refusing to take real action to close one of the biggest doors to tax avoidance. It is simply unacceptable. He needs to walk the talk.
Since the days when Paul Martin served as finance minister, governments have been spineless, and we must therefore continue to hope that leaders with influence, such as the board, will take action to change things. They must commit to no longer investing in companies operating in tax havens and to withdraw from these businesses as soon as possible.
Just because the federal government has made tax evasion and avoidance legal it does not mean that profiting from it is ethical. I believe that we must have this discussion because, if we continue down this road, our middle-class citizens and SMEs will continue to bear the burden of taxes. However, I have the impression that this will be a less than agreeable discussion.
This is how the CPPIB responded when it was rocked by the Paradise papers, and I quote: “ We structure our foreign investments to maximize after-tax returns for our contributors and recipients.” This is from a Radio-Canada article. It did not even offer an apology by saying that it had been busted and would change its ways.
Since it is profitable to use questionable or even outright illegal schemes, they will continue to do so. If it is not possible to have a profitable pension fund that meets its actuarial expenses, something is rotten in the state of Denmark, as Shakespeare said, or, in this case, the state of Canada.
The article continues:
Pension fund managers claim that they comply with tax laws wherever they do business.
They point out that pension funds are not taxed in Canada. As is the case with RRSPs, taxes are paid by workers when they withdraw their benefits after retirement. The use of tax havens therefore does not have an impact on federal or provincial coffers.
Other countries have different tax rules. Pension funds structure their investments so as to legally limit the double taxation of their profits.
Basically, they use tax havens because they are easily accessible, good for their bottom line and, until the government fixes the problem, profitable. Some companies even specialize in these kinds of schemes and are sometimes very close to this government. One example is Morneau Sheppell—“Morneau”, as in Bill Morneau, the former finance minister who left in the wake of the WE Charity scandal.
To sum it all up, Canada signs agreements with countries where, for a few hundred thousand dollars, wealthy corporations can hire firms to avoid paying taxes. To increase their profit margins, the CPPIB and other pension funds take advantage of loopholes in the tax system to increase the funds' profits. Meanwhile, the government hunts down large and small tax evaders, but for the largest of the large, the door to tax avoidance has been left wide open.
Obviously, I sometimes get carried away when talking about tax havens, because this really irks me. I will now get back to the substance of the bill.
Another potential improvement would be the disclosure of investments with respect to the proposed paragraphs 35(2)(a), (b) and (c). I would also like to add investments in the immoral polluting economy to that list. This would enable all Canadians who contribute to a fund to know whether they are investing in these types of companies. It would also enable the CPPIB to identify successes and improvements.
As I already pointed out earlier, one cannot really disagree with this bill, but the bill is vague, which means that it lacks teeth. For example, the absence of a clause requiring that funds stop investing in fossil fuels and in tax havens shows that there is work to be done. This bill is a step in the right direction, but I think that it could be improved, and I am prepared to work with my colleagues here in the House to do so. This is truly a step in the right direction, and I think we are in a position to make some improvements without significantly altering the spirit of the bill.