House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2008, with 42% of the vote.
Goods and Services Tax February 11th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, these figures are coming out from the minister's own department, so the minister clearly does not know.
The minister has said that $25.4 million accounts only for GST fraud cases that have been identified by the courts. Surely the minister's own department has the capability to identify fraud losses on its own.
Other than those cases that actually have made it to court, does the minister have any idea how much has been lost to GST fraud since 1994, yes or no?
Goods and Services Tax February 11th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, there are reports that in Halifax, $.2 million is missing; Calgary, $.3 million; Kamloops, $.5 million; Kitchener, $1.5 million; Montreal, $4 million; Port Coquitlam, $8.5 million; Milton, $20 million; and Surrey, $22 million; over $57 million is missing due to GST fraud. In the revenue minister's world this money has not been stolen; in the real world it has. This just may be the tip of the iceberg.
Why will the minister not come clean and give us the complete losses due to GST fraud?
Goods and Services Tax February 10th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, they take it as seriously as their promise to scrap, kill and abolish the GST. It is clear that the Liberals never intended to scrap the GST as they promised.
The former finance minister, and present finance minister, are guilty of incompetence and neglect. All the revenue ministers since 1993 have been guilty of incompetence and neglect.
My question is for the Prime Minister. Is a billion dollars stolen from taxpayers just a simple administrative problem, as he called it this morning, or are we on our way to another billion dollar scandal?
Goods and Services Tax February 10th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Alliance has been warning the minister for months that there is a crisis in the Department of National Revenue. Both the GST fraud conference held in 1994, and the Auditor General in 1999, warned that this fraud would occur.
The minister said that it was only $25 million, but in this case $22 million has been stolen and gone forever, and we know of two more cases, which brings the total to nearly $50 million.
Will she continue to downplay this massive theft as a mere pittance, or is she so incompetent that she does not know the real total?
Goods and Services Tax February 7th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, we now know the Minister of National Revenue has been hiding the massive levels of GST fraud committed by organized crime. What we do not know is why the minister refuses to tell Canadians how much has been stolen. Losing $1 billion is such a regular thing with the government that theft of $1 billion by criminals makes no difference to it.
How much money needs to be stolen from hardworking Canadians before the minister will properly investigate the problem?
Iraq February 6th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, earlier this morning the foreign affairs minister said that Canada was not absent on this issue.
Regrettably, the government's record of engagement has been to sit on the fence. In fact, the minister has ruled out every option available to the Canadian government and has instead insisted that Hans Blix, France or the United Nations should decide Canadian foreign policy.
How can we pretend Canada is engaged when the minister allows the veto power of other governments to decide our participation in any potential action?
Iraq February 6th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, a multilateral predeployment of military forces to the gulf is necessary to force Saddam Hussein to respect resolution 1441. Unfortunately, yesterday the defence minister said that Canadian Forces are “...making contingency plans in terms of various possibilities in Afghanistan...” This is unacceptable. Canada's place should not be on the sidelines.
To prevent war, does the minister not agree that predeploying troops to the gulf would help pressure Saddam Hussein to comply with resolution 1441?
Goods and Services Tax February 3rd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, that clearly is still not attributable to just GST. That is the fraud in general. She has used those figures before.
The government's refusal to heed the warnings has made it complicit in the crimes of those who are bilking Canadians of billions of dollars in GST rebates. In fact, it took the parliamentary secretary on Friday to confirm that the government has known all along that drug dealers, gun dealers and organized crime have been abusing the system.
Why did the minister do nothing to stop this? Do we have to wait for her parliamentary secretary before we get a straight answer again?
Goods and Services Tax February 3rd, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the government has been warned on numerous occasions of major GST fraud.
The first warning came from foreign tax specialists at a 1994 conference on the subject, and the Auditor General reiterated this more recently in 1999. We have learned that the government's refusal to heed these warnings is costing the taxpayers $1 billion yearly.
Why has the government ignored all these warnings?
Goods and Services Tax January 31st, 2003
Again, Mr. Speaker, they do not know how much of that is attributed to GST. She just said it right now.
The only thing that is clear is that the minister does not know what is happening in her own department. She gives us conflicting numbers and will not tell us the specific amounts related to GST fraud.
A month ago the minister said that under the bad debts category of the public accounts over $4 billion was missing. Yesterday she said $850 million has been recovered. Is she telling us, then, that there could be over $3 billion missing due to GST fraud?