Doug Peters

[Employment, October 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, to quote a statement of the Reform Party, it is the private sector that creates jobs.

Do Reform Party members not believe that? Why are they asking us for targets when it is the private sector that should be targeting job creation?

[Employment, October 22nd, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance have said time and time again, job creation is the government's number one priority.

We do not have a set target for jobs. Does the Reform Party have a target for jobs? No it does not. It has just found out that there is a need for jobs in this country. It is the first time we have heard about jobs from the Reform Party.

[Bankruptcy And Insolvency Act, October 22nd, 1996]

moved that Bill C-5, an act to amend the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act and the Income Tax Act, be read the third time and passed.

[Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, October 10th, 1996]

moved:

That Bill C-60, an act to establish the Canadian food inspection agency and to repeal certain and amend other acts as a consequence, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

[Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, October 8th, 1996]

moved that the bill as amended be concurred in.

[Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, October 8th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 2

That Bill C-54, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing line 24, on page 5 with the following:

"judgment has been satisfied outside Canada, or where a judgment has been given under the law of the United States entitled Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996,".

Motion No. 3

That Bill C-54, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing lines 32 and 33, on page 5 with the following:

"recover, under the provisions of section 9 that the Attorney General identifies, any or all amounts obtained from that party under the judgment, expenses incurred by that party, or loss or damage suffered by that party."

Motion No. 4

That Bill C-54, in Clause 7, be amended by a ) replacing line 4, on page 6 with the following:

"by that person under the judgment,"

(b) replacing line 10, on page 6 with the following:

"judicial and extrajudicial costs, and

(iii) any loss or damages suffered by that party by reason of the enforcement of the judgment; and" c ) replacing line 21, on page 6 with the following:

"which the judgment was awarded," d ) replacing line 25, on page 6 with the following:

"judicial and extrajudicial costs, and

(iv) such proportion of any loss or damages suffered by that party by reason of the enforcement of the judgment as the Attorney General may specify."

Motion No. 5

That Bill C-54, in Clause 7, be amended by replacing line 7, on page 7 with the following:

"is rendered, or any person who controls or is a member of a group of persons that controls, in law".

[Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, October 8th, 1996]

moved:

Motion No. 1

That Bill C-54, in Clause 7, be amended by adding before line 40, on page 3 the following:

"7.1 Any judgment given under the law of the United States entitled Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 shall not be recognized or enforceable in any manner in Canada."

[Supply, September 26th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased that the hon. member has brought forward this motion. I must admit in listening to him for the last half hour I was not sure whether I was listening to "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" or that maybe I was on another planet.

This does give the House an opportunity to see in black and white just what the hon. member and his colleagues have been shouting about for the past several days. As is so often the case, this motion makes it clear that the hon. member is rather confused on more than a few points.

The motion asks the House to condemn the government for failing to shed light on various transactions. I will have more to say in a few moments about what those transactions were and how the motion mischaracterizes them, but first I would like to take a look at the suggestion that the government has somehow been concealing things.

The auditor general issued his report on May 7 of this year. The Minister of Finance immediately asked the House of Commons finance committee to look at the important issues raised by the auditor general.

The Minister of National Revenue announced an immediate moratorium on the kind of advance rulings that had concerned the auditor general. That certainly does not strike me, and I am sure it does not strike Canadians, as the action of a government that wanted to conceal something.

The finance committee was given an extremely broad mandate and held several days of open public hearings. The committee heard from the auditor general and members of the auditor general's staff, a total of eight private sector professional and academic experts, and senior officials from the Departments of National Revenue, Finance and Justice.

The committee invited opposition members, including the hon. member who brought forward this motion, and the auditor general to suggest witnesses. During those hearings all committee members, including the hon. member, were free to ask any and all questions and to discuss any issue they saw fit. These hearings were also open to the public. Is there any possible process that could be more transparent than that?

In addition, the committee has tabled its report complete with partially dissenting opinions from the opposition members. The report is over 60 pages long and deals with every one of the issues identified by the auditor general. Again, I fail to see how this indicates a desire to conceal something.

In response to the committee report, the Minister of Finance said that the government would look seriously at the recommendations contained in both the majority report and the minority reports and would take action once there had been adequate opportunity for consultation. In the meantime Revenue Canada's rulings moratorium would continue.

How does all of this show any reluctance to shed light on an issue? The fact is the government has acted quickly, transparently and appropriately in response to the concerns raised by the auditor general.

If anyone is afraid to shed light on these matters, it is the hon. member and his colleagues. With their unsubstantiated claims of scandals and billions of dollars worth of capital fleeing the country, they are leaving Canadians entirely in the dark about what are the real issues.

This brings me to the next part of the hon. member's motion. The motion talks about a flight of capital; $2 billion in total that left Canada free of tax. It suggests that even more money, billions even, is sure to leave the country as a result of some unspecified thing the government has done or the government has not done.

The hon. member is a colourful speaker and this is a colourful motion. It has a vision of convoys of Brinks trucks lined up at the U.S. border waiting to go south. Colourful as that image is, Canadians deserve better than this. Canadians know that there is no restriction or tax on moving money out of Canada. Apart from a handful of countries with exchange controls, this is the way the last half of the 20th century world is. Money moves freely and we are all the better for it.

Having confused the issue, the hon. member will now back up and say that what concerns him is not movements of money per se, but movements of untaxed capital gains. Somehow he says $2 billion in assets left the country with no tax being imposed. Here again the truth is considerably less exciting and a whole lot more complicated.

The fact is Canada does tax people leaving Canada on any capital gains their property has accumulated. We are one of only a few countries that do this. Our rules in Canada are tougher than the rules in the United States. Our rules are tougher than the rules in the United Kingdom. Our rules are tougher than the rules in France. Our rules are tougher than the rules in Germany. Our rules are tougher than the rules in Japan. Our rules are tougher than the rules in Switzerland and they are tougher than those in almost any other country anywhere else.

We do not tax people who leave with gains on Canadian property. That is because we will tax the gains on Canadian property when they are actually realized or if a tax treaty applies, the person's new country will tax those gains. This is not a loophole. It is not something of which only rich people or only trusts can take advantage. It is a basic part of our tax system and it has been there since 1972. It makes good policy sense. Do not tax on realized gains unless you have to tax. It is not the only policy we could have and the committee has suggested that it be reconsidered. But it hardly deserves the kind of scorn the hon. member is heaping on it.

The issue that Revenue Canada had to rule on in 1985 and again in 1991 under the previous Tory government was whether certain shares were the kind of property which is known as taxable

Canadian property. The issue is a complex, technical one. There was no immediate clear answer. At the end of the day Revenue Canada said the property was taxable Canadian property.

Last May the auditor general indicated that he was concerned that this might not have been the correct answer in a technical sense. As soon as the minister became aware of the auditor general's concerns, he asked the all-party finance committee to look at the issue with the help of experts. He did not hide from the issue. He faced the issue squarely. He did not put it in an expert's hand. He did not do any of those things. He put it in the hands of an all-party finance committee and asked its members to consult the experts, suggest witnesses and come back.

The committee invited the opposition to suggest those experts who might participate and the expert opinion was overwhelmingly that Revenue Canada was correct. There was no tax free flight of capital. Let me repeat, there was no tax free flight of capital.

The particular taxpayers concerned did not pay any tax, true. That was because they did not owe any tax. I am sure that not even the hon. member who proposed this motion really wants Revenue Canada to collect tax it is not owed.

The motion goes on talk about other capital leaving the country, as though the government had opened some secret door to let people escape tax. That is absurd.

The committee found that in 1985 and 1991 the rulings did not open any new avoidance opportunities. With the Minister of National Revenue's continuing moratorium even in the unlikely event that there was some yet undiscovered, secret way to exploit the current rules, taxpayers could not be certain their avoidance techniques would work because the Minister of National Revenue has put a moratorium on advance rulings.

It is true that there is a flight of capital under way right now. That flight of capital is into Canada. Business people and investors around the world realize Canada is such a good place to invest their money, to do business, and there is a flight of capital into Canada these days.

Regrettably the separatist government in Quebec makes it hard for that province to attract its share of this new investment. It is understandable that the hon. member tries to distract attention from what are the real issues. Those real issues are that the separatist government in Quebec is not attracting the amount of money into Quebec that could have attracted if there was another government.

The simple fact is that this issue, important as it is, does not involve any flight of capital. The issue of tax is not a flight of capital. People come into and leave Canada all the time. Some of them are rich people, and some of them are poor people. Some of them do not owe any tax but that does not mean that our system is grossly deficient, much less that there is some government conspiracy to let people off their legal obligations.

The motion also talks about the government attacking the credibility of the auditor general. The hon. member said that the committee denounced the auditor general. That is simply not the case. That is pure unadulterated rhetoric.

The hon. member is well aware that the report of the finance committee is just that, it is a report of the finance committee. The committee is composed of members of Parliament from all officially recognized parties in the House. The role of a parliamentary committee is a vital one to our democratic process. The work of the committee is the work of its members. Its work does not represent government policy, it represents the work of its members.

The government would not have it any other way. We value the work of the committees of this House. Even the hon. member who put forward this motion would not want to have a system whereby the work of committees was not independent.

By ignoring this distinction I can only conclude the hon. member does not wish to deal with the difficult policy choices that the report implies, not when there is an easy headline, not by repeating irrelevant accusations, not by simply defending the auditor general against non-existent attacks. Those are the tactics of the opposition members and they are certainly irrelevant.

In summary, this motion is an excellent written summary of everything that is wrong with the official opposition's approach to so many complex matters. It ignores the real question. It repeats unprovable accusations. It denounces the government for acting irresponsibly. It simplifies to a point of incoherence some very difficult public policy issues. All of these are untrue. All of these are ridiculous. The motion will be rejected by anyone who believes in parliamentary democracy and believes in the rule of law.

[Goods And Services Tax, September 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to listen to the members of the Reform Party talk about this, especially when it was the Reform Party that said in a minority report on the GST that a harmonized tax would do it.

This deal is not falling apart but rather it is a deal which will go through.

[Goods And Services Tax, September 25th, 1996]

Mr. Speaker, the one thing that the Canadian people agree on is that the GST harmonization with the provincial retail sales taxes are good for business and good for the people of the country and not harmful. The Atlantic provinces agreement is just the first step in moving to a harmonized retail sales tax across the country.

We hope that the hon. member will support us in this, if he is interested in business, if he is interested in developing the economy, if he is interested in this country at all.