House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2015, with 42% of the vote.
Canada Revenue Agency April 17th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with that answer.
Yesterday, the Minister of National Revenue claimed that cuts to her department will only affect internal operations. However, Le Devoir reported that 221 audit positions have been eliminated since the Conservatives came to power.
The Conservatives have also cut $68 million from the CRA returns compliance program.
Why are the Conservatives not making combatting tax evasion a priority?
Canada Revenue Agency April 16th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the facts just do not support the minister's claims. The fact is that Conservatives are taking $68 million from the returns compliance section of the CRA, which is responsible for enforcing “compliance with Canada's tax laws”. They are also cutting $120 million and over 250 full-time staff from the reporting compliance section, whose job is detecting non-compliance “through risk assessment, audit, investigation”.
Will the minister now stand up and acknowledge she is cutting the very CRA sections responsible for going after tax cheats?
Canada Revenue Agency April 15th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, while families are being squeezed, the Conservatives are making life more expensive for Canadians and are simply refusing to admit it.
The Conservatives, for example, are relying on billionaires to report their income in tax shelters and are pretending that this is a serious policy. Self-policing by tax cheats is no way to run a G8 economy.
The minister should be investing in enforcement, not cutting it, as she is. When will the minister agree to act and accept the practical measures the NDP has been proposing so we can crack down on tax cheats?
Canada Revenue Agency April 15th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, instead of admitting the truth, Conservatives are yet again making things up to attack the NDP.
The people, for example, who make and sell iPods agree that they are raising taxes on many items, including iPods. The Conservatives are simply making life more expensive for Canadians and are refusing to admit it. No one is being fooled by the Conservative talking points.
While families pay more, wealthy investors using tax shelters are getting away with not paying their fair share. Why is the minister cutting the Canada Revenue Agency's enforcement branch?
Business of Supply April 15th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, it grieves me deeply to be quoting the Fraser Institute on anything, but when it gets it right, it is important the truth be told. It has quoted the Canadian Consumer Tax Index. It has frequently done this. It is not novel for the Fraser Institute. It says there is such a thing in Canada as hidden taxes, and it clearly includes import duties and excise taxes on that list.
That is what we are talking about: the hidden taxes facing Canadian consumers. The Conservatives say there is nothing about income tax, but Canadians know better. They know who pays and what the bottom line is.
The difference between a tariff and a tax is that a tax is direct hit on Canadians' pocketbooks; a tariff gets us there one step later.
Business of Supply April 15th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, the requirement for Canadian retailers to address these tariffs and therefore to raise their price of goods to the end consumer will cause consumers in the Kingston, Vancouver, or Niagara area, or wherever we are close to American borders, to say, “It is cheaper to go into the United States. The tariffs are lower there. Let us go there and not shop at home. Let us not create wealth and jobs in Canada; let us do it in the United States”.
It is short thinking.
Business of Supply April 15th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, in our judgment, it is not about the amount of taxes, it is about the amount of hypocrisy. The Conservatives have said repeatedly that they are the ones that taxpayers can trust to cut taxes, balance the books and not raise taxes. Those have been the promises. I am trying to demonstrate in the House the difference between the words of the government and the actions reflected in the budget.
A budget is the best expression of a government's priorities. Also, given the things that politicians say in advance of a budget, it gives us a very good barometer on the integrity of a government that promises not to do something and then turns around and demonstrably does the opposite. That is the focus of this line of questioning.
To suggest that there is, in a sense, a tax on air—
Business of Supply April 15th, 2013
moved:
That this House condemn the tax hikes introduced by the government in Budget 2013 on hospital parking, bicycles, baby strollers, coffee makers, iPods and other goods and services, which break the promise the government made to Canadians during the last election.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to speak on a motion that calls on this House to condemn the tax hikes introduced by the Conservative government in budget 2013. It raised taxes on hospital parking, bicycles, baby strollers, coffee makers, iPods and other goods and services, which, in our judgment, breaks the promise the government made to Canadians during the last election.
In that election, Conservatives ran on a pledge that there would be no new taxes. The Prime Minister said, “I give you my word: As long as I will be Prime Minister...there will be no new taxes”.
In the lead-up to the budget, the Minister of Finance reaffirmed that pledge and again promised Canadians that there would be no tax increases in this budget. In his 2013 budget speech, the minister said, “We will not raise taxes...”.
However, as noted, the budget is filled with hundreds of tax hikes on everything from hospital parking, credit unions and workers' funds, to bicycles, baby strollers, safety deposit boxes and the like. Apparently they both forgot this promise. The reality is that there are tax hikes, and they will cost Canadians nearly $8 billion over the next five years.
I should note at the outset that I will be sharing my time with the member for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques.
The Conservatives are raising taxes on over 1,200 types of goods, which will hit Canadians in their pocketbooks. These tax hikes will also hurt Canadian businesses, which will now find it harder to compete with their U.S. competitors as the cross-border price differential widens. The government should be supporting Canadian retailers, not forcing cash-strapped shoppers to head south of the border, which is a phenomenon many of us living in southern Canada see growing every year.
Not content to simply raise prices on hundreds of goods, the Conservatives are trying to help their big corporate friends by attacking institutions that support working families, such as credit unions and workers' funds, with hundreds of millions of dollars in new taxes. The Conservatives are unwilling to let anything escape taxation, and even increase taxes on those with safety deposit boxes to the tune of $150 million.
I predict that we will be told by the Conservatives and their apologists that the new tariffs are not really taxes at all, and that therefore their promises have not been broken. However, hard-working taxpayers know the bottom line: they will have less in their pockets next year, if their incomes remain constant, than they will this year. That is the bottom line that Canadians will understand.
In anticipation of this argument, I decided to look at some material that defines taxes. I went to the very reputable Canadian Tax Foundation's book, called Tax Policy in Canada, which was given to us at the finance committee not long ago. It defines tax as follows:
Taxes are compulsory payments made by individuals and businesses to government treasuries to finance public services.
It goes on to say:
Taxes are not the only source of government revenue.
Indeed, in the Canadian Tax Foundation's Tax Policy in Canada, under “Principal Elements of the Canadian Tax System”, the first item is tariffs. It spends a lot of time talking about the historical importance of tariffs as important sources of revenue for the government.
Something I rarely do, and I suspect my colleagues on this side of the House rarely do as well, is quote the Fraser Institute. However, when the Fraser Institute referred to the Canadian Consumer Tax Index last year, it said the following:
The Canadian Consumer Tax Index calculates the total tax bill paid by a Canadian family with average income by adding up the various taxes that the family pays to federal, provincial, and local governments. These include taxes such as income taxes, sales taxes, Employment Insurance and Canada Pension Plan contributions, as well as “hidden” taxes such as import duties, excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol, amusement taxes, and gas taxes.
The most drastic tax hikes in this budget are entitled “Modernizing Canada's General Preferential Tariff (GPT) Regime for Developing Countries”. This measure raises tariffs. We say it is a form of tax, agreeing with the Fraser Institute, on imports of 1,290 types of goods from 72 countries. These tariff hikes will raise the price on goods across the board, hurting consumers and retailers. The government is raising tariffs on over 80% of all imported types of goods from over 70 countries, and it is inevitable that Canadian consumers will feel the effect in their pocketbooks.
Canadian retailers are going to have to raise their prices as well. The tariff hikes are going to widen the Canada-U.S. tax gap.
The government is trying to frame the general preferential tariff as a foreign aid program, but Canadians will not be fooled. Changes to the general preferential tariff are simply more tax hikes. According to industry sources, this will raise the price of affected imports by some 3%.
The Conservatives have trumpeted their $76 million in tax relief for sporting goods and baby clothes, but this is vastly outweighed by the tax hikes in the general preferential tariff. In their marketing of the budget, the Conservatives have made a virtue out of lowering tariffs on sporting goods and baby clothes in an effort to deflect attention from the massive increase in tariffs on 1,290 types of goods from 72 countries. That is what is going on. The GPT tax hike is going to generate $330 million a year, and by 2017-18 over $1 billion in total.
What about the famous iPod tax? The Conservatives have told us that there is no such thing. I am indebted to Professor Moffatt of the Richard Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, whose analysis can be found in The Globe and Mail and elsewhere. In his judgment, after admittedly tortuous analysis of a very complicated system of exemptions and tariffs, he concludes that there is such a thing as an iPod tax. Also buried in the long list of tariff hikes imposed by budget 2013 is a new 5% tax on MP3 players and iPods entering Canada. It is tariff category 85119.81.29.
This is a new Conservative iPod tax. They have claimed that music devices and iPods would not be subject to a tariff increase. Why? It is because it is a special exemption dating from 1987 for devices that are plugged into a computer. However, Professor Moffatt's analysis demonstrates that actually qualifying for that exemption is so onerous that it is unlikely any importer or retailer will be able to use it to avoid the new Conservative iPod tax. The Conservatives are just blowing smoke.
Sony of Canada has warned that consumers should expect an increase of 5% to 6% in the cost of its MP3 players and iPods because attaining the exemption is so complicated.
The new 5% tax on iPods and MP3 players shows Conservative hypocrisy on tax hikes. Despite the photo op with the Minister of Industry and the Minister of Canadian Heritage at the end of 2010, there is a real iPod tax.
The Conservatives have always tried to claim that they are the defenders of Canadian taxpayers. They have repeatedly run on platforms focused on tax cuts and promises not to raise taxes; they have broken their promises.
New Democrats believe in doing politics differently. We believe politicians should be accountable for what they say and do. The Conservatives promised Canadians they would neither raise taxes nor create any new taxes. They have violated this pledge to Canadians. My hope is that all members of the House will consider the motion carefully and vote to condemn these harmful tax increases.
Taxation March 28th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, if Conservatives cannot even read their own budget, it is no surprise they cannot listen to their own caucus.
The Minister of Finance said clearly last week that no one could find any tax increases in the budget. However, any Canadian could look at pages 331 and 332 of the budget and see with their own eyes billions of dollars in tax increases in black and white. Let me ask a very simple question. Could the Conservatives admit that they are raising taxes on, say, safety deposit boxes?
Petitions March 27th, 2013
Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to present petitions to this House in support of the bill introduced by my colleague from Verchères—Les Patriotes. Bill C-464, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act , which would grant extended parental leave for multiple births or adoptions as a way of levelling the playing field for parents with multiple children.