Daniel Paillé

[Tax Harmonization, November 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is obviously confused about the collection agreement versus a tax policy.

The Government of Quebec has been collecting the GST and QST for 18 years on behalf of the two governments, and this system works very well.

Can the Minister of Finance assure us that the National Assembly's fiscal autonomy will be respected and that Quebec will continue to collect the sales taxes, which are already harmonized?

[Tax Harmonization, November 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has given a whole new reason for the impasse in the negotiations between Quebec City and Ottawa about harmonized sales tax. The problem for his government is that there is not just one tax.

My question is simple: which tax is one too many, the GST or the QST? In its controlling and centralist mindset, which of the two taxes takes precedence over the other, the GST or the QST?

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, November 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I urge you to never confuse the member for Brome—Missisquoi with the member for Outremont. It is embarrassing.

This weekend, there was a symposium in Montreal, and I remember one phrase in particular. People in Quebec often refer to themselves as tightly knit, but now that immigrants have come to Quebec, we tend to talk about being tightly woven, with new strands from elsewhere. People are learning to live together. That is how Quebec will be going forward.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, I think you should apologize to the member for Brome—Missisquoi.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, November 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member mentioned a few things, but I want to focus my response on the beginning of his question. Yes. I am here and over 50% of the people in the Hochelaga riding voted for the Bloc candidate. This is not the first time. They have been voting for the Bloc for 16 years. Yes, I pay taxes in Quebec and Canada and, as long as we are here and as long as Quebec decides to be a part of this country, we will have the right and obligation to be here. Everyone knows that our objective is to achieve sovereignty for Quebec in a democratic fashion.

I have one hope and that is to be the last member for Hochelaga in this House because we, the Bloc Québécois, want to build a country with which we can identify. We simply cannot identify with this bill. We cannot relate at all to the type of country they want to build. We want to build ourselves a nation and no one other than Quebeckers will tell us how to do it.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, November 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when I heard what the government members want to do, I said to myself that if that is the kind of country they want, let them go ahead. However, that is not my kind of country; it is not what the Bloc wants. We do not want to go down that road. We do not want to be extraordinarily tough on crime, as they say, just because that is their inclination.

The purpose of this bill is to crack down on human smugglers. However, the Conservatives are aiming at the wrong target; they are completely misguided. The people who are exploited and vulnerable, who are fleeing because of political, economic or social conditions, are the ones arriving here, and the Conservatives are targeting them. They are taking aim with a really big gun, one that is too big. Instead of clamping down on the smugglers, they are clamping down on the vulnerable. Have the members who spoke seen the conditions in which these people live in their countries of origin? I use “live” loosely in this case. These people survive. They are used to living in fear, hiding, being secretive. They are hunted down in their own country. Some say that they go into hiding when they arrive here. That is what they have been taught to do. It is their survival instinct. These people have come here and should not be subject to different measures simply because they arrived in a group of 49 or 50 others.

These people sometimes leave behind children, relatives, perhaps even spouses. And now they are told that if they come here with 50 others they will be put in prison for 12 months and they must not ask why as the answer will be “because”. The government has cause to spend more and more money on prisons. At the rate they are going, the Conservatives will need more prisons. They take the people who arrive in Canada and tell them that they will immediately go straight to the Hilton prison without asking any questions. Instead of targeting the smugglers, they are targeting the victims.

They are creating categories of refugees not on the basis of their status or where they come from, or the relative danger of their place of origin, but based on how and with whom they arrive.

Clause 17, which amends section 117 of the act and adds subsections, very clearly states that when the offence involves fewer than 50 people, the smuggler will be sentenced to five years in prison, but if it involves 50 or more people, the sentence will be 10 years. So what happens if there are only 50 people? Will they throw one person overboard? Pardon the expression, but when smugglers know that if there are 50 or more people, they risk one sentence if caught, and if there are fewer than 50 it is another matter, what will they do? Will they draw straws? Will they ask themselves which one to get rid of? It makes no sense.

The government has introduced a muddled, convoluted bill because a boat arrived one day with about 500 people on board. It created quite a frenzy, as if the 500 people were armed to the teeth and were suddenly going to threaten 30 million people. Come on. The government reacted strongly, too strongly, based on presumptions.

The government says these people can be imprisoned for up to 12 months with no recourse to challenge that. These people are being told that they are now in Canada, which they chose for its freedom, and now they are being introduced to our kind of freedom. If that is the kind of freedom they want, then fine, but that is not Quebec's idea of freedom. If we needed another reason to fight for what is fundamentally right, the Bloc Quebecois's raison d'être—Quebec sovereignty—there is it. Canada puts refugees in prison when more than 50 arrive together on one boat.

This flies in the face of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and many international obligations, including the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which Canada has signed. This infamous bill also flies in the face of that convention. It also goes against the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It lumps men, women and children together and says “thank you, good-bye”. One has to read it to believe it. The Conservatives really did this.

It is not for nothing that Canada lost its seat on the United Nations Security Council. It was this type of disgraceful policy that caused the seat to be lost. Why did the other countries vote against Canada? It is not because they did not receive their goodies, but because they wondered whether Canada was suited for the Security Council. It is too bad, but they said no. It is unfortunate, but such bills are shameful.

With the government putting these people in jail and telling them, when they hide somewhere and are caught, that they will not be entitled to bring over their loved ones for five years, even though they are refugees, we wonder about the new foreign policy. The hon. member who spoke before me listed all the prohibitions. Under this new policy, Canada is telling people to stay home, it is no longer going to help them, and it is cutting off international aid. Canada is closing more and more embassies, which are a reflection of how we live in Canada.

Canada's foreign policy is to cut international aid, and it is becoming more and more right-leaning. Canada is closing more and more embassies and becoming increasingly militarized. It is telling refugees that if they dare come here by boat with more than 50 people aboard, when they reach their destination, they will be shot, or almost.

This bill flies in the face of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We need to secure our borders, but there needs to be an appropriate balance between security, openness, welcome and diversity. In Quebec, we understand that. If Canada wants to adopt this type of policy, then so be it, but as long as we are here in the House, we will vote vigorously against such policies.

[Securities Industry, November 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is amazing how wilfully ignorant the minister is. Yesterday, at the Standing Committee on Finance, he openly admitted to me that he had not heard about Pierre Lortie's study. Lortie is the former president and head of the Montreal Exchange.

This study clearly demonstrates the harmful nature of his plan and, notably, the false impression of voluntary membership. But he does not listen to or read anything unless it suits him, and he is not interested in differing opinions.

Does he not simply want to concentrate financial market power in Toronto, to the detriment of all the other financial markets and Montreal?

[Securities Industry, November 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the list of those opposed to a single securities commission is growing. Now the head of the B.C. Securities Commission, Paul Bourque, is opposed to the minister's plan. According to Paul Bourque, “Canada's ability to finance small business, the lifeblood of economic growth and employment, will be put in serious jeopardy,” if the minister's plan goes through.

Will the minister finally understand that his plan, openly rejected by Quebec, Alberta, Manitoba and now British Columbia, is headed for disaster?

[Privilege, November 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Finance and I would like to begin by saying that the chair of the committee, the hon. member for Edmonton—Leduc, handled this matter properly yesterday when we discussed this particularly important issue.

The hon. member for Outremont has basically repeated the same discussion we had yesterday. However, with all due respect for the members of this House, I would like to clarify a number of aspects and actions, and remind the House of the facts.

Last Thursday, an employee of the hon. member for Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, in a premeditated act, pushed all the right buttons to post the document in question on the Internet. It is important to note that this was no accident and the information did not slip out in a conversation in an elevator or in the bathroom.

Thus, three well-known lobbyists were given access to the document. They were basically given preferential treatment, since the document in question had not yet even been discussed in committee. In fact, we still have not discussed it, since we thought it would be better to resolve the issue here in the House before discussing it in committee. The document is over 100 pages long and was worked on by public servants and parliamentary officials. In it, the four parties' positions are very clearly stated. So these lobbyists received all of this information before the members of this House did.

Before we had a chance to address this item in committee, roughly 100 hours had passed between Thursday around 5 p.m. and yesterday around 4 p.m. During that time, the document was out in cyberspace. Some 100 hours went by before the chair of the committee could contact the three lobbyists in question to ask them to stop circulating the document, if it was indeed circulating, to destroy the document and to provide supporting evidence that the document had been destroyed. Circulation for 100 hours on the web, on the Internet, is a lot, especially since we have no control over the web. In my opinion, significant harm has been caused to the hon. members of the House since this document was a draft of a report that was to be tabled here.

I will close by citing page 1073 of the House of Commons Procedure and Practice:

Committee reports must be presented to the House before they can be released to the public. Even when a report is concurred in at a public meeting, the report itself is considered confidential until it has actually been presented to the House. In addition, any disclosure of the contents of a report prior to presentation, either by members or non-members, may be judged to be a breach of privilege.

It is often much easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission and that is deplorable. Consider how long it took for the hon. member to apologize to the House last evening, and that was the thing to do. We hope nothing like this will happen again in our committee or in the House.

[Montreal Alouettes, November 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Montreal Alouettes advanced to the Grey Cup by literally crushing the Toronto Argonauts 48 to 17. The one-sided game took place on Sunday at the Olympic stadium in the magnificent riding of Hochelaga.

Thanks to spectacular team play, the Alouettes handily dominated their opponent. The support of 58,000 fans was also a factor.

This is the Alouettes' third consecutive trip to the Grey Cup, which they won in 2009. This year's championship game is a rematch, as Marc Trestman's team will again face the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

The Bloc Québécois hopes that the Montreal Alouettes will return victorious from Edmonton next Sunday and parade before their fans with the precious cup in hand. As in other matters, Montreal knows how to beat Toronto.

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2010, November 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, there are days like this when we must promote the interests of the Bloc and Quebeckers. We have before us a bill with a title that is a bit long and a bit grand-sounding, namely, An Act to implement conventions and protocols concluded between Canada and Colombia, Greece and Turkey for the avoidance of double taxation—the first objective—and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income—the second objective. Are these objectives being met?

Everyone, particularly those who have done business abroad based out of Quebec or Canada, knows that taxation is a very complex area that only becomes more complicated with each budget speech. Sometimes people ask us why taxation is so complicated. It is because, every year, we have finance ministers who go into all of Canada's legislatures or national assemblies to announce what they plan to do. Since 1867, I do not think that Canada has ever seen a single finance minister stand up to give a budget speech and simply say that the taxation, treaties, taxes and fees are fine as they are and that no changes are needed, and then sit back down. This is the ideal, but it has never actually happened. Instead, each year, more and more layers are added to the giant fiscal onion making it harder and harder to digest.

This type of bill emulates treaties that prevent a source of income from being taxed twice for the same purpose. I am using this term because personal income, in Quebec for example, is taxed once by the Government of Quebec and then a second time by the Government of Canada or vice versa. Thus, it is not unusual for income to be taxed twice in Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and elsewhere. That is an everyday occurrence.

Under this legislation, at the international level, income would be taxed by the country where it is earned or by the country where the taxpayer is a resident. There are thousands of treaties. The OECD has a model tax convention that has been used thousands of times over. Canada has about one hundred such treaties.

Which tax jurisdiction will apply? In the case of remuneration, a person's income will be taxed based on their residency, no matter where they earned the income. Thus, the parliamentary secretary from Calgary will be taxed by Alberta. Or, if I am from Hochelaga, my income will be taxed by Quebec under the treaty because I am a resident of that province. The residency rules are considered next. For example, to be considered a Quebec citizen with income taxable by Quebec, one must have lived there for at least six months plus one day.

Under international agreements, capital gains will also be taxed by the country where the asset that gave rise to the gain was sold.

The earnings of a company should be taxed based on its residency, or if the company is established—with a subsidiary—in a foreign country, local taxation laws apply. And that is where a number of problems arise.

For dividends, interest and royalties, each country basically gets its share. In the agreements we have before us with Colombia, Greece and Turkey, this varies between 5% and 15% for dividends. It is 10% for interest and 10% for royalties. That tax is payable to the foreign country and is deductible from taxes paid in Canada. So we essentially have an agreement. Why? To encourage free trade. Quebec has always been in favour of free trade. Everyone in Quebec and Canada knows that Quebec was the driving force behind the Canada-U.S. and Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreements. It goes without saying that Quebeckers support it.

But the tax systems must be comparable. We must ensure that the Canadian and Quebec tax systems are comparable to that of the country with which we are signing a tax agreement.

We have three countries here. For example, Quebec exports to Greece, Colombia and Turkey represented $550 million in 2009. So we cannot say that these three countries will change anything for Canada or Quebec with respect to international trade. With all due respect, that is rather minimal. For example, among these three countries, we do the most trade with Greece, and that represents only 0.64%, or one-third of 1%, of our imports.

In principle, we agree with it. We need to know the difference in the application, since we want to avoid double taxation, but we do not want this arrangement to encourage tax evasion or tax avoidance in the countries in question.

We apply section 26, as suggested by the OECD. Section 26 is often mentioned in these agreements. In Canada, we used it once with the Canada-Netherlands agreement on the Dutch Antilles in 2009. We applied the OECD principles to the letter. That is one country out of 87. As for the rest, it seems as though either the Canadian political system or the negotiators are in a hurry to go slow.

For example, there are 14 countries. And I remember that these negotiations were mentioned at second reading. They have been negotiating since that time. What are they negotiating? What are they discussing? Are they exchanging documents? Are they just chatting and visiting? We do not know. There is Anguilla, Aruba, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Guernsey, and all kinds of islands, such as the Cayman Islands, the Isle of Man, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands, Jersey, Saint Kitts and Saint Lucia.

They are negotiating. But what has been happening in the meantime? We are beginning to wonder if Parliament can have a say in it and not just be asked to pass a bill and its schedules.

We think that we should have some say. What has been happening while they have been in talks with the 14 countries I just mentioned, which are not exactly large industrialized, trading or manufacturing countries? In 2008, Canadian direct investment in Barbados, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands totalled $86 billion. Canada is in talks with these three countries, but does not have agreements with them. They represent 14% of Canada's direct investments. That is a lot.

In 2000, direct investments totalled $33 billion, compared to $86 billion in 2008. After eight years, investments were 2.6 times higher. Using a cumulative interest rate, this equals an annual increase of 12.7%. How could we, from 2000 to 2008—remember 2009 and 2010 are not included—have gone from $33 billion to $86 billion of direct foreign investment in countries that are considered to be tax havens? All that time, there have been so-called talks.

We want the negotiations to produce results. We want them to sign agreements following negotiations with these countries. We want them to come to the House to report on all of these agreements.

The former revenue minister, who is responsible for these agreements, said at one time that tax agreements between countries should be as unrestricted as possible. I would love them to be as unrestricted as possible, but there have to be some restrictions. That is why we think parliamentarians need to get the information directly. It is good to have information, but that information needs to be accurate and complete.

The OECD has defined tax havens. What does the OECD say about tax havens? They are countries with little or no taxation. I was saying earlier that we agree that Canada and Quebec should enter into international agreements with countries that have similar tax rates. When tax rates on dividends, corporation income and individuals are similar to those of a tax haven with very low tax rates, we need to ask some questions.

Furthermore, since the bill very clearly says that the goal is to prevent tax evasion, we need clear, transparent information.

Just a couple of hours ago, I spoke to another bill, the bill concerning information the PBO was requesting from the government. As we said, the danger is that the government would ostracize the PBO and prevent him from getting accurate information.

Once again, for the second time in less than two hours and regarding another bill, we are saying that the information we get from countries with which we want to negotiate must be accurate and clear, not like pea soup. Clear information is needed.

We also need to avoid all legal and administrative barriers. We are coming up against more and more administrative barriers when trying to get this information. Requesting information is all well and good, but we need to obtain the information.

Again, I am referring to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's statement in fall 2010 that he still had not received the information requested from the government in June 2009. That is an administrative barrier. Is the government becoming a tax haven for information? It is not far off the OECD definition of one.

According to the OECD, to determine whether a country is a tax haven, you have to ask yourself whether the country advertises or invites other countries or businesses to invest in it because of its rather lax tax system. Quebec might invite countries to invest in it for its technologies, aerospace sector and people who understand hydroelectric energy. In this country we truly have the information, technology and resources. However, when a country invites us to invest in it because it has a rather lax tax system, that is the definition of a tax haven. It is a very good definition because it is easy to understand.

On April 1, 2010, the OECD came up with a grey list of 17 countries that are making efforts to move from the black list to the white list by signing a few treaties. However, we have to be careful.

I am all for signing tax treaties with countries such as Belize, the Cook Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, Montserrat, Nauru, Niue, Panama, Saint Lucia, Vanuatu, Brunei, Costa Rica, Guatemala, the Philippines and Uruguay, but let us be careful.

A tax treaty has to include five conditions: exchange of relevant information, no restrictions, the possibility of accessing information, respect for rights and complete respect of confidentiality. Our electors and taxpayers are sometimes sick of the agreements reached with that type of country. They get the impression that rich people or people who work for companies that have the means to go elsewhere take advantage of the situation to benefit from the tax rate that simply cannot be compared to the tax rate here. They are fed up and they wonder why they are paying so much tax when others who are much wealthier pay far less in tax.

In closing, all these treaties should respect the commitments already made by the Conservative Party. The House should take part in the process and the government should also respect the jurisdiction of the provinces and Quebec.