Mike Sullivan

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we are dealing again with another closure motion. The most important thing we could ever face in the government right now is that we sign six fairly routine international tax treaties with six different countries.

Canada's international reputation with treaties is not good. Canada's international reputation with treaties is that we sign them and then we break them, or we sign them and we do not keep them up, or we sign them and ignore them. An example is the tax treaty we have now with the United States. If people are American citizens or people that the United States deems to be American citizens, because even people who are born here are deemed by the United States to be American citizens, if they come to Canada after the age of 14 and have children in Canada, those children are now American citizens.

A woman in Calgary wrote to me because she was experiencing some serious financial pressures as a result of the lack of updating of the tax treaty with the United States.

She had a disabled son who the U.S. determined was a U.S. citizen because she came from the United States when she was 15. That U.S. citizen son had taken advantage in Canada of the disability tax credit. She had taken advantage of it and he had taken advantage of it. As a result, they had some tax savings in Canada.

However, when they filed their U.S. taxes, they discovered that the U.S. government did not recognize Canada's disability tax credit and did not recognize the disability caregiver tax credit. As a result, any savings that they had were lost. Plus, they had to pay accountants $2,000 each time to file these taxes with the U.S.

Canada has not taken any action on that. We are by far the furthest behind when it comes to these treaties with the U.S., our biggest trading partner. By far, the greatest number of Canadians who are of American descent and who are accidental Americans, as it turns out, are affected by that, yet here we are under closure dealing with these treaties which are routine. They are not, as the government has suggested, going to provide wealths of money to the Canadian government.

Therefore, this is part of a series, I think, of treaties that the Canadian government has signed that are not necessarily being kept up by the government.

I wonder whether these treaties actually go far enough and whether they will be kept up by the Canadian government, whether we will go after people who are trying to cheat on taxes in any systematic or realistic way.

We also have the examples of the Kyoto accord, which was an international treaty that was signed and then abandoned.

We have the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which was signed in 2010 and the government promised the UN that it would provide a report card in March 2012. We are still waiting and the UN is still waiting. This is another example of an treaty that was signed internationally and that was abandoned.

It is bad for Canada's reputation, a country that wants to sign tax treaties with other nations, that wants to be a progressive part of the tax system in the world, not just for tax purposes but for all kinds of purposes, for trade purposes, for environmental purposes, to have the ability to convince the United States to run a pipeline down through the U.S.

That is just a smattering of the examples of ways that Canada's reputation, internationally, has been suffering under the Conservative government.

Switzerland is one of the countries that is part of this bill. Right now, Geneva is hosting the United Nations Human Rights Council as we speak, which is looking into the issue of violence against women. We understand that Canada is reported to be disregarding recommendations on taking action against sexual violence against women and to be opposing sexuality education programs

Those reported actions are part of a trend of the government that I have noticed, which is leaving women out of economic action plan ads, leaving women out of suggesting that women's training should be equal to men, that women should be only trained as hairdressers and nail salon people. That is another example of the kind of attitude the government brings to these kinds of things. Women pay taxes, too. Women deserve the same kind of rights as men. Women should not be left out of the equation.

The government suggested that today was Tax Freedom Day, whatever the heck that means. I went on the Fraser Institute website to see what Tax Freedom Day means and, in fact, in 2009 Tax Freedom Day was last Friday. Therefore, we are going backward. We are paying more tax now under the current government. How did that happen? It was earlier in the year in 2009. Is it a mistake maybe? It is all lies, damned lies and statistics when it comes to facts and figures.

The government has also suggested that Canadians, on average, are paying $3,200 less in tax. Again, the Fraser Institute says that the average Canadian is paying $3,100 more in tax now than in 2006. Where does the Conservative government get these unabashed statistics about taxes? It is part of the government's responsibility to deal with these tax treaties with other countries and this is a fairly routine thing that we support, although we do not want the government to try to take credit for this bill doing more than it would actually do. This bill would not find a way to solve a tax cheat problem.

If $29 billion of money is waiting to be collected by the government, why is it not collecting it? More than signing this treaty, why is it not doing something about finding that money and putting it back in the coffers of the government? Can anyone imagine what the tax savings would be for ordinary Canadians if the government could find that $29 billion? Can anyone imagine the amount of good that could come from it? We could almost afford the Senate—no, we could not.

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things our friends in the third party suggested was that there had been some money spent on collecting from tax cheats. However, the Auditor General in fact said that at the end of 10 years of Conservative rule until 1994 and then again at the end of 13 years of Liberal rule in 2006, the amount of money being escaped from taxes was actually growing and growing significantly.

Could he comment on this?

[Tax Conventions Implementation Act, 2013, June 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, some of what we have been talking about tonight has been about trying to catch tax cheats and the $29 billion that sits outside of Canada's reach at the moment because it has effectively been hidden from our tax collectors.

However, at the same time that we are trying to find that money, we are cutting staff and funding from the Canada Revenue Agency, which means that there will be fewer people there to catch these cheats. Can we deal with that, effectively?

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, June 4th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I find it quite ironic that we are here debating ending debate, and what we hear from the Conservatives is debate on the bill, not on ending debate.

It is yet another example of the disdain the government has for our parliamentary democracy. It is the 40th time in just over two years, that is one every seven sitting days, that we have had to end debate. We have had to shut the mouths of the parliamentarians. We heard from the Conservative backbenchers how much they liked having their mouths shut, when they complained about the fact that they could not be heard on issues that were of importance to them.

Let us look at the other abuses of parliamentary democracy that we have had in the House of Commons. We have had omnibus bills on the budget that had nothing to do with matters that were raised in the budget, that raised all kinds of other things, yet this was supposedly part of the government's plan, which was never mentioned in their plan.

Instead of a revered chamber of sober second thought, the Senate has become a place for cracks, hacks and flaks who are doing nothing to make this parliamentary democracy work for us.

[World MS Day, May 29th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today is World MS Day. Multiple Sclerosis is a neurological disorder that causes disability. Most diagnoses occur between the ages of 25 and 31, afflicting about twice as many women as men. It is not known what causes this disease, and as yet there is no cure.

MS puts hard demands on the health and income of family members acting as caregivers. There are three important changes that we could make to help people with MS and their caregivers stay in the workforce and ease their financial hardships.

Employment insurance sickness benefits should be made more flexible so people with MS and other disabilities can get support when and how they need it. The criteria for receiving disability credits and benefits should be eased to help people with MS and other disabilities to qualify because their health condition varies over time. Finally, disability and caregiver tax credits should be refundable to improve income support for caregivers, particularly those in need.

These steps would help people with MS and their families cope better until a cure is found.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the member that this party did not vote against economic action.

I voted against eviscerating environmental legislation. I voted against paying temporary foreign workers 15% less than Canadians. I voted against bringing temporary foreign workers in to replace Canadians in their jobs. I voted against seniors having to work another two years. I voted against removing protection from the Humber River, the Clearwater River and hundreds and thousands of other rivers as part of the economic action plan. I voted against failing impoverished seniors. I voted against cuts to the disabled. I voted against cuts to EI.

That is our record. That is what we did, and that is what we will continue to do when the government continues to hide these horrible things inside other legislation.

As far as this particular piece of legislation goes, you have heard from me already. I am very nervous about where the power-hungry and power-seeking Conservative government is going to take it, but we are willing to send it to committee so that we can try to improve it. I do not expect that the government will allow it to be improved, but we will see.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, if history is our guide, we will not see any agreement on the other side of the House to any possible amendments to the bill. However, like the man beating his head into the wall over and over again, we are going to go there again because we do want to make Parliament work. That is part of why we came here, to try to make laws that are good for all Canadians and to make Parliament work, to make both sides of the House actually do their job.

Therefore, we will examine the bill, examine whether we can support it with amendments and put those amendments forward to the other side. Hopefully, members will actually listen.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly right. The bill retroactively fixes the problem the government ran into when it discovered what it was doing did not have the blessing of both chambers, did not have the blessing of the committees that deal with the status of regulations. One of the things we do not like to have happen is that, when government makes a mistake, it asks us to bless it retroactively. That is not something we are prepared to do.

On the other hand, if Conservatives convince us that there are occasions when this kind of behaviour warrants consideration by the houses of Parliament, then let us go there, let us have those discussions, but let us not get in the business of fixing the mistakes of the government retroactively in order to cover its backside.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, in the same vein of what happens in a union meeting when somebody moves a motion, somebody seconds it so it can get discussed. That is what we are saying here. The government is doing it anyway. The government is actually passing these portions of its bills 170 times so far without any strictures around them. If we are going to stop the government doing certain things, the bill has to go to committee and amendments need to be brought forward to limit what the government is already doing.

I hear what he is saying about delegatus non potest delegare. That is a basic principle. However, as I also said, there may be, on rare occasions, places where it makes sense for Parliament to actually do that. We should examine ways of making that happen that would not be too scary.

[Incorporation by Reference in Regulations Act, May 23rd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the member opposite if that is what Bill C-38 said. However, it does not say that we are to harmonize our regulations with the provinces. It does not say that at all. It says that the minister may make regulations that can be amended at any time and those regulations can reference other jurisdictions, not just the provinces. It could be anywhere. Bob's towing company could be the one setting the regulations for our environment. That is not acceptable.

If it specifically mentioned the provinces, I would not have a problem with it.

In my speech, I actually referred to some specific things that could be done to make this a better bill, but maybe he was not listening.