Madam Speaker, I think my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue firmly established what the problem is from the outset.
Today, we are talking about housing and the fact that the resources available to respond to needs in that area are insufficient. That is true for health, social services and all other state obligations.
In reality, we have enough money, but that money is slipping through our fingers. It is growing in tax havens to the benefit of the wealthy. Who is paying for that? It is low-income earners and the middle class who are footing the bill for the wealthiest members of our society. That is completely unacceptable. I do not understand how our Liberal colleagues can tolerate such a thing.
I would like to pay tribute to our colleagues from the Conservative Party, the NDP and, of course, the Bloc Québécois. They raised many concerns with regard to my motion. Nothing is perfect in this world, and I am well aware of the fact that there may be some problems with my motion. However, they chose not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They chose to keep what was good about the motion and build on it. We need to take action. We cannot make excuses for not taking action. However, that is exactly what the Liberals are doing. They are saying that the few small problems, alleged problems, with the motion are reason to dismiss it, to reject the whole thing.
There is a saying in Quebec that when a person wants to have a dog put down, they say it has rabies. That is exactly what is happening here. They are pointing out a few small issues in the motion to justify rejecting it altogether.
If the motion's objective is commendable, why not build on it? Why not work together to come up with real solutions to combat tax evasion and tax avoidance?
As we know, G7 finance ministers have agreed on a similar objective. Why are the members of this House not able to agree on such an objective? It boggles the mind.
The Liberals claim to be the champions of the middle class, but the reality is quite different. Since the Jean Chrétien government was in power, more than 20 tax agreements have been reached with tax havens, including at least three since the current Prime Minister took office.
The government claims it is combatting tax havens, but there are more of them. The government is normalizing the use of tax havens. That is completely unacceptable.
My colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue said that the main Canadian corporations have reportedly stashed $381 billion in foreign countries. The Parliamentary Budget Officer concluded that this $381 billion, which is a mind-boggling amount, was not primarily for investment purposes. My colleague pointed out that this represents one-third of Canadian investments abroad. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has told us that this money was not investments, rather, the corporations were using these tactics to avoid paying their fair share for state obligations and services. That is completely unacceptable.
I also find it unacceptable that the Liberal government is digging in and saying that it will be business as usual. Throughout this entire debate, the Liberal members have been bringing up the budget. They have been telling us to trust in the budget, that it will work and that they will continue what they have been doing so far. The problem is, things are not working. We need to take the bull by the horns and take real action to meaningfully combat tax evasion and avoidance, in the name of tax fairness.