House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2019, with 29% of the vote.
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, the Liberal government also promised major spending on infrastructure, but presented a deficit of roughly $3.4 billion.
More importantly, the budget contained a privatization strategy called “asset recycling”.
Can the minister tell us what infrastructure projects or what assets are being considered for this type of privatization?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, the question was about how much was actually lost by the government in tax expenditures on the employee stock option adoption. That is about $800 million.
I would note that this is a different discourse than what the government was saying during the campaign. The government promised to phase out tax measures that primarily benefit the wealthy and that is the case for this specific measure which goes primarily to the most well off.
I would like to know why the government broke its promise that was made during the election to close this tax loophole that subsidizes largely wealthy CEOs.
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, on a different topic, what does the department estimate is the annual cost of the deduction for stock options for employees?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, will the tax treaties that Canada has with certain tax havens be evaluated, and if so, when?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, before assessing the quality of the solution, we need to find out what the problem is.
I will ask my question again. Has the government conducted a study to determine how much revenue the government is missing out on because of tax havens? If such a study has been done, how much are we talking about?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, someone earning between $100,000 and $200,000, which is most of the members of the House, would actually get $679 in tax cuts, which is about three times more than somebody earning $60,000.
Has the department conducted an analysis on how much revenue the government loses on tax evasion using tax havens every year? If so, how much?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, can the minister tell the House how much someone making between $100,000 and $200,000 would get from this tax cut?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, in fact, since there are about 28 million taxpayers, this means that 19 million Canadians will not get a dime from those tax cuts.
The problem lies with the definition of “middle class”. If the average income in the country is about $40,000, according to Statistics Canada, and the median income is $31,000, we can all agree that a large portion of the middle class will not get one red cent.
My question is very simple. Given these definitions from Statistics Canada, what is the minister's definition of the middle class?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, I would like to move on to the so-called middle-class tax cut.
Can the Minister tell us how many Canadian taxpayers will not benefit at all from the tax cut the Liberal government promised?
Business of Supply May 30th, 2016
Mr. Chair, I was really hoping that the minister would provide an estimate in terms of numbers and economic growth percentages. Maybe he can do so in his answer to the next question.
The main estimates show that there is a $10-million cut under the economic and fiscal policy framework. I would like to know how many fewer analysts the department will employ, and what that will mean for the forecasting function of the department.