Jim Maloway

[Petitions, February 7th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my petition has been signed by dozens of Canadians who are calling for an end to Canada's military involvement in Afghanistan.

In May 2008, Parliament passed a resolution to withdraw the Canadian Forces by July 2011. The Prime Minister, with agreement from the Liberal Party, broke his oft-repeated promise to honour the parliamentary motion and, furthermore, refuses to put it to a parliamentary vote in the House.

Committing 1,000 soldiers to a training mission still presents a danger to our troops and an unnecessary expense when our country is faced with a $56 billion deficit. The military mission has cost Canadians more than $18 billion so far, money that could have been used to improve health care and seniors' pensions right here in Canada.

Polls show that a clear majority of Canadians do not want Canada's military presence to continue after the scheduled removal date of July 2011. Therefore, the petitioners call upon the Prime Minister to honour the will of Parliament and bring the troops home now.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I understand the member is not running in the next election, so I want to wish him well. I have had many good times with him in the public accounts meetings when I was a provincial member and he was the long-time chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

The member explained quite well the problems with tax evasion and money laundering. I disagree with his assessment that we should be signing and implementing a free trade deal when we should be doing what France did a year ago, that is, get tough with Panama. When France started taxing corporations doing business in Panama, the Panamanians simply signed the tax treaties that the French wanted.

We are not going to get anywhere if we simply sign agreements without getting tax treaties signed first. That is the point. The member was on the right track and he had great arguments, but he should vote against this deal until those tax treaties are signed.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question.

There is trade, albeit limited trade, with Panama. Whether we sign an agreement, ratify the agreement or not, it will not stop trade.

The member for Winnipeg North should recognize that. Trade will continue under the current conditions. The current high dollar is what is really determining the trade balance in this situation. As the dollar goes up, our exports will become more expensive and our imports will be cheaper. It is an issue of the dollar.

The member is absolutely right about the lack of trust in those governments with which we negotiate. They do not honour commitments they make in terms of labour or environmental rules. We have seen this over and over again. Once the agreement is signed, they start backtracking on these promises, if they even make the promises.

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the issue is whether we should sign trade deals with money launderers and drug dealers.

Does the member support money laundering and drug dealing? We are supposed to be cracking down on these activities. The government is supposed to be tough on crime. Where is the example of that? Why is the government not following through on their rhetoric? If the government was going to be tough on crime, it would ask the Panamanians to sign the tax agreements and then it would negotiate.

That is what is happening with the United States in this situation. The former president of Panama, Manuel Noriega, is doing time in a Florida jail. He was involved in money laundering and drug dealing. The Americans went in, seized him and put him in a Florida jail for many years to come. He has been there a long time. That is getting tough on crime.

Where are those guys and why is the member supporting them?

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is an opportune time for me to make my presentation on this bill because I was about to ask the member for Winnipeg North a follow-up question.

He said that we do not abrogate our trade agreements with the United States or other countries that might have questionable practices that we do not approve of. My retort to him would be that the United States is not signing this agreement either. In fact, no fewer than 54 United States congressmen have demanded that President Obama forgo the agreement with Panama until Panama has signed the tax information exchange treaties. That is how to get things done. We get tough with these countries. We refuse to sign free trade deals with them until they sign those tax information exchange treaties. That is my point.

France was able to get tough with Panama 12 months ago. France refused to accept the status quo. France got tough with Panama, and Panama with cap in hand immediately signed an agreement with France. Just so the member knows, in France, dividends, service fees, royalties and interest paid by French entities to a beneficiary in a blacklisted country, which is Panama and others, will be faced with a 50% tax. Gains from real estate and securities transactions will be subject to the same levy. Also, France's 95% tax exemption on dividends issued by a subsidiary to its French-based parent company will be removed if the subsidiary resides in any blacklisted jurisdiction. Guess what. There was immediate action. The companies themselves started putting pressure on the French government and it responded.

Just so the members knows, of the blacklisted countries we are dealing with now, the list is getting smaller and smaller. Ever since the OECD compiled the list some 10 years ago and France came up with its blacklist, the list of countries has been getting smaller. We can see that the process can work and does work if we want to put pressure on them.

I will give the member another example. Switzerland has been a famous tax haven for many years. Many Canadians have been involved in Switzerland. It was not until the Obama administration started to put pressure on Switzerland two years ago on the basis of the terrorism argument that Switzerland started to become compliant and gave out information. If we take away the terrorism case and if we take away the fact that it was a powerhouse country like the United States that put pressure on Switzerland, Switzerland would still be thumbing its nose and refusing to give out information.

In addition, two employees, one of a Swiss bank, sold their computer records to the German government. Canada was a beneficiary of some of that because the Germans gave us a list of about 100 Canadians, who have since declared their participation in this tax shelter. I believe that is how the information came out about the Mulroney situation that was before the House not too long ago.

Exactly the same phenomenon occurred with a bank in Liechtenstein in the last two years. An employee of the bank made off with the tax records and went to France. The authorities pursued the person and tried to recover the disks. The person turned the disks over to the authorities and the authorities went after the bank.

We now have another big group of several hundred names that was reported a few months ago. In fact, there are more people in that second group from Canada than from the United States. Progress is being made. These things can get resolved.

Canada now has this amnesty program rather than try to charge back taxes. It is crazy. If the hon. member, or any of us in the House, were chased for taxes, we would be hit up with penalties. We may even get time in jail for avoiding taxes. However, anybody who has been hiding their money in these tax shelters, the revenue department has an amnesty program. People just have to sit tight and wait until they are caught. The department will give a period of time, perhaps a month or two, for them to voluntarily declare what is being hidden.

That is what happened with the people in B.C. There were 100 people who walked into Revenue Canada and confessed. Their names had already been given to Revenue Canada so there was little investigation to do. They paid their taxes and they were scott free. I guess they were not supposed to do it anymore. With this latest group, the same principle applies.

Where is the big stick? Where is the initiative of the government? As much as it talks about getting tough on crime, it is all talk, especially when it comes to situations like this.

I think the member clearly understands that and would support it. That is why 54 United States congressmen have refused to proceed with the agreement. The American agreement was signed by George Bush before he left office and it is going nowhere.

The Liberals might want to ask their trade critic, the member for Kings—Hants, who is heavily involved in these areas. He does a lot of globe-trotting to meet with politicians in Colombia, or wherever Canada is negotiating trade deals. We were on a trip together to the United States to meet with senators. They are not getting anywhere in the United States. This deal is dead in the states because of the country's reputation as a haven for money laundering and tax evasion.

Further, I am sure the member is aware of a company called AIG, a big insurance company. It was one that was bailed out when the economy collapsed in 2008. That company had a lot of nerve. It took billions of dollars of taxpayer money to be saved from collapse as it was argued they were too big to fail. The company was one of the 350,000 foreign registered companies doing business in Panama. Six months after it took all of this cash from the taxpayers of the United States, the executive gave themselves huge bonuses. About this time, the company filed a law suit against the United States government to recover taxes it felt it should get back on its investments in Panama. Talk about nerve.

That has riled up the members of Congress. I have a letter signed by Michael Michaud, member of Congress, and Walter B. Jones, member of Congress. This really has the Americans riled up and they will not allow this agreement to go through. Why is Canada putting this as a top priority and why are the Liberals supporting it?

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, does the member think it is a bit odd that a federal government, the Conservative government, that proclaims itself to be tough on crime is signing free trade deals with countries like Panama that are on the OECD blacklist, on France's blacklist? According to the United States state department, Panama has over 350,000 foreign registered companies. It is definitely a tax haven involved in money laundering activities. It is a conduit for Mexican and Colombian drug traffickers.

Essentially, what is happening is the Conservatives are promoting this with the help of the Liberals. The member is actually aiding and abetting a government that purports to be tough on crime but is actively looking for trade opportunities with drug traffickers and money launderers.

How does he square that support?

[Canada-Panama Free Trade Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the member is familiar with the OECD's grey list and blacklist as well as the French blacklist on tax shelters.

In February last year, the Government of France was tough with Panama because it was refusing to sign a double taxation avoidance treaty. France was creative and levied a tax of 50% on dividends, interest, royalties and service fees paid by anyone based in France to a beneficiary based in the countries on the blacklist, which includes Panama.

What happened? The Panamanians immediately rushed to get off the list and within months France signed a tax treaty with Panama.

France is not negotiating a free trade deal with Panama, yet Canada, which is actively negotiating a free trade deal with Panama, does not seem to be interested in the fact that it is dealing with a country on France's blacklist.

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask the member to consider for a moment that there could have been some common ground in these negotiations. It would have been a much tougher approach by the Canadian government to say to the Americans that 100 flights a day from Canada fly in United States airspace but there are 2,000 flights a day from the U.S. flying in Canadian airspace, that Canada will provide that information but the U.S. will have to provide Canada with the same information. Immediately American airlines and consumers would have become very agitated and would have started calling their representatives in Congress and there would have been a pullback on this issue.

The government told me the other day that Canada could not afford the computer system to process all of this information and the Americans have the half a billion dollars to dedicate to that.

The other issue is that in terms of the agreement itself, Canada has an agreement on PNR use with the European Union. It deals with the PNR totally differently. Unlike this agreement where we are going to give the Americans the information and they can keep it for 40 years, the PNR agreement with the EU requires a very limited time period for the disposal of the data. It makes sure that the information is rendered anonymously so it is not tied to an individual. There is—

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Madam Speaker, the member knows that for any flight actually landing in the United States, the Americans get passport information before the flight actually leaves the ground in Canada. This legislation would basically extend that same process to flights that are overflying the United States.

It makes perfect sense to me that when the Canadian government is negotiating with the Americans, it would demand reciprocity. That is just the normal process. Thus if we are going to provide information on those 100 flights over American airspace, the U.S. in turn should provide us with information on 2,000 flights over Canada.

A member of the government told me the other day that the government could not afford to pay for the computer system to process all of the information and that because of that, the government had not asked for it. Had we asked for that information, the whole process would have ground to a halt, because the American airlines and the American public would have been enraged and would have gone to Congress and their senators and voiced their concerns. If so, this whole idea would not have been pushed with the deadline of December 31 and this other sense of urgency that we are seeing right now.

Furthermore, in the Canada-EU agreement, in regard to PNR management matters, the PNR is treated totally differently. There is a time limit for disposal of the data, which is not in this agreement before us, where the data can be held for 40 years. There is a limit on the data's use, which is not in this agreement. Under this agreement the data can be shared with other countries like Panama. There are limits in terms of the individualization of the data. The information is rendered anonymous so the security services can build up a profile without attaching it to any one individual. Is that not--

[Strengthening Aviation Security Act, February 3rd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, the government really has not been up front about this whole issue. It introduced the bill on the last day of the session in June. Then it told us that it had to be passed by the end of December or the overflights would have to stop. We are into February already and the flights are still continuing uninterrupted.

Let us look at other countries. The member for Western Arctic indicated to me that there is no stoppage of flights from Mexico. We should be looking at how the Americans are treating other countries. There are many other countries which have flights overflying the United States. What have those countries been doing?

It appears the government does not want to provide full information on this or any other topic for that matter. Conservatives are a very secretive group and also poor negotiators. They had the opportunity to ask for reciprocity. The Americans have 2,000 flights a day flying over Canadian airspace and we only have 100 flying south. Yet the government has not asked for reciprocity from the Americans. That would have shut this operation down as the U.S. would not want to provide passenger information on that many flights.