Herb Dhaliwal

[Trade And Tourism, May 31st, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to report to the House that two weeks ago I went to Washington and had the opportunity to meet administrative officials and also talk to the business industry about how we can move the shared border accord forward.

By looking at a new vision for the border, we have decided to get our officials together to see how we can expedite the movement of goods and people across our borders and move the shared border accord, which the President and the Prime Minister signed a few years ago. We have an excellent working relationship and we are certainly going to move this agenda forward.

I want to thank the hon. member for his support on this issue.

[Trade, May 27th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, we work very closely with the industries on areas where there is dumping. Of course we have to depend on the industries to provide the information. There is an international tribunal that makes those decisions as to whether dumping does exist or not. We follow the law and we follow the ruling of the tribunal.

[National Revenue, May 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, obviously the member does not listen very well.

First, the member from Calgary asked if we had moved hundreds of jobs in Ottawa. I stood and said that we had moved one job. Obviously the hon. member does not understand the difference between moving people and processing tax returns.

I want to tell the hon. member that we will ensure that we provide the best possible services in a way that is efficient and cost effective to all Canadians.

[National Revenue, May 26th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, it is incredible that members of the Reform Party bring this issue up. Why are they not saying that processing all the applications at the immigration office in Vegreville is wrong? Why do they not say it is wrong where we process applications in the rest of the country? Why is it only in Shawinigan?

Obviously they are not interested in efficiency. They are not interested in making sure that we operate in the best possible way to provide the best service to Canadians. We will continue to do so to make sure that we provide service to Canadians across the country, everywhere from coast to coast.

[Mirabel Airport, May 14th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we have had royal assent on the revenue agency bill. It will make sure we get rid of overlap and duplication. The members on the Bloc side bring up quite often their wish to get rid of overlap and duplication.

A recent poll showed that more Quebeckers would rather have Revenue Canada collect their taxes than Revenue Quebec. I think they should be working toward reducing overlap and duplication by signing on to the agency so they have a single window tax collection system that would reduce compliance costs and save Canadians millions of dollars.

[Questions On The Order Paper, May 10th, 1999]

For each of the last two fiscal years, with the last fiscal year ending March 31, 1998, the chart indicates (a) the number of personal and corporate income tax returns processed annually by the Department of National Revenue and (b) the number of people involved in processing these returns:

Fiscal year—Number of personal returns, 000 1996-97—21,432 1997-98—21,677 1998-99—22,075, estimate

Fiscal year—Number of FTEs* for processing 1996-97—4,110 1997-98—3,551 1998-99—3,604, estimate

Fiscal year—Number of corportae returns, 000 1996-97—1,110 1997-98—1,140 1998-99—1,201, estimate

Fiscal year—Number of FTEs for processing 1996-97—814 1997-98—820 1998-99—840, estimate

*Full-time equivalent, FTE

The Department of National Revenue is constantly updating the way it does business in order to improve client service and increase efficiencies. One example of such change is e-file for the electronic filing of personal income tax returns, which is now being used by over 25% of Canadians. Changes such as e-file, telefile and corporate e-file will reduce the workload in all of the department's processing centres. Rather than allowing these workload reductions to occur across all centre and suffer the resulting reduction in efficiency, the Department of National Revenue is redirecting the work from the Ottawa Tax Centre.

As announced in October 1996 the Ottawa Tax Centre has assumed a new role as a specialized technology site with a national call centre, as well as scanning and imaging systems. The processing of personal and corporate tax returns previously handled by Ottawa is being redistributed across the seven other tax centres located in Surrey, Winnipeg, Sudbury, Shawinigan, Jonquière, St. John's and Summerside. This will require some boundary adjustments for all centres. This change will ensure that the Department of National Revenue's processing operations remain efficient in processing the reduced number of paper returns.

The total number of personal income tax returns being redirected nationally is 3.9 million and the total number of corporate returns is 231,000. This year the total number of returns that are being redirected to Shawinigan from Ottawa and north eastern Ontario is 695,000 personal returns and 28,000 corporate returns.

[Youth, May 10th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, we were very happy last Friday to be part of the announcement that Hilton Canada will join the Missing Children's Network Canada to promote the cause of child safety and heighten the public's awareness of the serious problem of missing children.

I am particularly proud of my department's participation in our missing children's program which assists police forces and other agencies across Canada and internationally in locating and returning abducted children and runaways.

We all share in the responsibility to find every missing child. One missing child is one too many.

[Budget Implementation Act, 1999, May 6th, 1999]

The important people are here. We listen.

[Questions On The Order Paper, April 23rd, 1999]

The Department of National Revenue does not record income tax data in ways that would provide the information requested. Foreign tax credits, tuition and charitable donation non-refundable amounts claimed by clients are not segregated by jurisdictions, educational institutions or specific charitable organizations.

[Taxation, April 20th, 1999]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, we have $16.5 billion in tax relief.

In terms of the underground economy there are many estimates as to what its size is. The auditor general has one estimate. What the auditor general has said though, and I hope the member will read it, is that what Revenue Canada is doing now is to have a balanced approach to ensure there is social marketing to make Canadians aware of their responsibility. All Canadians want to pay their fair share of taxes. We are confident that they do that. We are looking at methods to ensure we give proper service to Canadians to—