Pierre-Luc Dusseault

[Canada Revenue Agency, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is funny to hear my colleague still talking about the 2015 election in her speech and accusing me of presenting a bold, yet responsible platform. We had the courage to say that we would go after the tax revenues needed to create a platform that was both bold yet responsible. What is somewhat ironic is hearing an accusation about having presented a responsible fiscal framework. I find that quite ironic.

Getting back to today's subject, when the Canada Revenue Agency releases the results on how its call centres are performing, perhaps in the next CRA performance reports, I wonder if we will even be able to trust the figures reported in those documents. The Auditor General has said that the figures on CRA call centre performance are bear no relevance to reality and are misleading Canadians.

Has that at least been corrected?

[Canada Revenue Agency, March 28th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to follow up on a question I asked on November 22 about a very important matter for most of your constituents, and mine, and I am sure the constituents of all members of the House: the Canada Revenue Agency' call centres. This is an important matter for most people because it is tax season, and we are filing our tax returns with the CRA, which expects to receive all of the necessary information on time. In return, we expect to receive prompt answers and sometimes a cheque from the CRA.

The verdict on the CRA call centres is clear: they do not make the grade. Surely, this Auditor General's report cannot be more scathing than last year's. Just to recap briefly, the Auditor General found that when callers phoned a CRA call centre to request information on their own files, more than half of the calls were blocked. Out of 53.5 million calls, 29 million were blocked. Nearly 30 million of the 53 million calls were simply blocked. The callers were not even put on hold to wait for the next available agent. The calls were just blocked. The phone would not even ring.

The Auditor General found that when callers did manage to reach an agent, they were given wrong information 30% of the time. This means people are calling a representative of the Government of Canada for advice on their own files and getting inaccurate information 30% of the time, causing them to be misled on their own files. One would hope that when a person calls the Government of Canada to request information, the agents answering the phone will at least, in most cases, provide accurate information, but that is not the case at the Canada Revenue Agency.

Imagine if these statistics applied to a private company. Imagine a cell phone provider or Internet provider with those sorts of statistics. That company would have gone out of business a long time ago. Customers would have simply given up on a company that provided such poor customer service.

However, when it comes to the Government of Canada, there is the impression that this sort of thing is normal and that it is okay. The government is complicated. It takes far too much money to provide quality service. That is what the government is telling us again today. Four months after this issue was raised, there are still no measures in place to resolve the situation. All we are hearing are things like “we know”, “we are taking the Auditor General's report into consideration”, “we are going to do something; do not worry”, “we have a plan”, “we will find a solution“ and “we will provide better service”. Today, four months after the report was issued, there is no indication that the situation has improved.

I am asking my colleague to tell Canadians, yes or no, whether they have more than a 50% chance of reaching an agent when they call the Canada Revenue Agency and, if they do manage to reach an agent, whether they have more than a 70% chance of getting accurate information.

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

He often says that he is trying to seek out the truth and he believes that the government may be hiding things from Canadians because there are two seemingly conflicting versions of the story.

We have not yet addressed the possibility that the two versions do not conflict or that both versions are true, which would mean that the member for Surrey may have been complicit with the Indian government.

Has my colleague also thought about the possibility that the government is not clearing things up for Canadians because it is hiding something even more serious than we thought?

[Business of Supply, March 22nd, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, other government members have given the same explanation as my colleague. They say that he is an independent and non-partisan official, as if that were a reason for not allowing him to appear before a committee.

I do not know which committee my colleague sits on, but officials appear before parliamentary committees all the time, and that does not cast any doubt on their impartiality. When we tried to invite Daniel Jean to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we were told to trust these officials and that they are independent and impartial.

What connection is my colleague drawing between Daniel Jean’s invitation to appear before the committee and the need for him to maintain his independence?

[The Economy, March 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, a massive economic burden is being placed on the shoulders of Canadians, and this burden continues to grow. Half of Canadians are $200 away from not being able to pay their bills, and they are taking on increasing levels of debt.

In the meantime, the Minister of Finance claims that the economy is doing very well. Obviously, he and his friends are the only ones benefiting from this economic growth.

How can the Minister of Finance assess our country's economy for Canadians when he does not even have a tool for calculating and assessing the consequences and risks of Canadians' household debt?

[The Budget, March 20th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, that is an excellent point that I did not get a chance to bring up in my speech.

The government keeps talking about the debt-to-GDP ratio going down, but it purposely fails to mention that the cost of servicing the debt will increase over time. The cost associated with the debt is somewhere between $28 billion and $32 billion a year. Who gets money from servicing the debt? The banks and major international financiers, that's who. It is certainly not middle-class Canadians, who actually own the state, who will get that money.

If interest rates go up as the Bank of Canada projects, the cost of servicing the debt will increase significantly. The government's fiscal framework does not account for that. That is another reason why we cannot support this utterly flawed policy.

[The Budget, March 20th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, this is not an adequate response to the criticism I made. My colleague just said that the Liberals had promised pharmacare as early as 1998. They had until 2006 to bring it in, but they failed. Of course, the Conservative Party of Canada was in office in the meantime.

In October, the Liberals will have been in office for three years, and there is still no bill or framework to implement pharmacare. I understand why people are sometimes cynical about government. They are skeptical about new measures being implemented since it takes so long.

The Liberal government is dragging its feet. If they had the conviction and if they had the courage to bring in pharmacare, they would have done it a long time ago. Pharmacare could even have been brought in before the Liberals took office in 2015. Once again, it seems that the Liberals are trying to buy time. I can guarantee you that this national pharmacare program will not be in place before the next election.

[The Budget, March 20th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I am going to share my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith, and I will get to the heart of the matter right away. Today, we are debating the government's budget statement. This is a document that is supposed to set the government's direction for the next financial year. Clearly, that covers a wide range of subjects. I will try to limit myself to the topics that I find most important. At the outset, I want to say that, unfortunately, this budget is completely out of touch. I would like to be able to say otherwise, but the budget is completely out of touch, perhaps because it was produced by the government's two main architects, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance. They are out of touch with the reality of many Canadians. That is why we have a budget that is so completely out of touch. In a vote as important as this, I will not be able to give it my confidence, and so I will not be able to support this budget when the vote is called.

One of the main reasons for my disagreement is that the fiscal framework of this budget has completely missed the mark. The fiscal framework is missing many pieces and also leaves many things out, such as, for example, the sources of revenue. As a result, in my opinion, the fiscal framework is not up to the task. This is not just my opinion; the parliamentary budget officer is also openly criticizing this framework. For example, there is the fact that, where certain items forecast expenditures for programs and for the public service, no provision has been made for the collective agreements signed with the public service. There are therefore major gaps in the budget in terms of the government's spending estimates. That might indicate to us a gentle austerity in the future, if the government wants to stand by the budget framework that it has published in its budget. A framework of that kind does not hold water when it relies on a number of forecasted factors in the future. The parliamentary budget officer has said so as well.

Budget 2018 also really lacks courage. The Liberals did not have the courage to go after those who are profiting from the current system, according to Canadians, specifically corporate executives. They are continuing and will continue to pocket millions thanks to preferred rates that average taxpayers who pay their taxes every year do not have access to. Average taxpayers do not have this advantage because they are not corporate executives who receive stock options. We could also talk about the multinational corporations that will continue to benefit from our weak tax laws that allow them to move their profits offshore and then repatriate some of that money without paying taxes in Canada. This will continue, because there is nothing in the budget to pull the rug out from under those multinationals that are taking advantage of our tax system and the global tax system to avoid paying their fair share.

The Liberals also did not have the courage to stand up to web giants on the tax issue. Netflix, Facebook, and Google are not paying their fair share of taxes to our society. This is common knowledge and well documented. The Minister of Finance and the Minister of Canadian Heritage also know this very well. They do not have the courage to do what other countries have done to stand up to these web giants. Even Quebec has done so, in its own way.

My colleague often speaks about protecting pensions. I also see that the Liberals lack the courage to protect Canadians' pensions by changing the law. This is a hot topic today. Companies like Sears continue to take advantage of this overly lax system and are shirking their responsibilities towards their employees and former employees.

This budget is also chock full of half measures and the government is just pretending that it is taking action. It is not enough to get my vote. Half measures, for example, are the many things that the Liberals promise will happen after the election. It is not the first time this has happened. Successive governments have done the same thing. They make promises that will be fulfilled after the next election, and thus the promises are conditional upon the incumbents being re-elected. That is not the way to govern. They should govern and keep their promises right away, while in government. There are also half measures concerning pharmacare. I mentioned it earlier when I asked my colleague a question. They are again promising that a new committee will study the issue even though the Standing Committee on Health is about to complete its own study.

The government is saying that it needs more evidence to show that this is a good option, even though the Liberals promised a national pharmacare program in 1998. They promised a pharmacare program 20 years ago and they are still not convinced it is a good idea. They always want to conduct a study before moving forward, and I am not convinced that this is really going to happen, given that they have failed to deliver on other promises, such as electoral reform. Obviously, I have very little confidence in this government's promises.

My colleague from Nanaimo—Ladysmith, with whom I am sharing my time, will likely have a lot to say about pay equity. The Liberals promised pay equity but can we trust them? Will we really see this legislative change in the budget implementation bill? We will see. Of course, the money needed to close the gender wage gap in the federal public service is not provided for in the fiscal framework, which is a major omission. I therefore cannot support a flawed fiscal framework that leaves out such important things.

What is more, the announcement regarding local media is clearly inadequate. The $50 million that was promised is nothing but a half measure. It does not respond to concerns and does not give local media what they need to ensure that quality information is being disseminated to our regions, such as my riding of Sherbrooke where people read La Tribune. It is not enough.

There is also nothing in the budget to help reduce household debt, a recurring problem that we are always hearing about in the news. The rate of Canadian household debt is currently 171%. That means that the average Canadian family has $1.71 of debt for every dollar earned. Every time Statistics Canada publishes a report on that subject, the average debt-to-disposable-income ratio rises. However, there is nothing in the budget to address this situation, which the government has known about for a long time and which continues to get worse. The Minister of Finance continues to ignore this problem, which is threatening the Canadian economy.

I would also say that this budget is disrespectful to the Standing Committee on Finance. I sat on this committee during the pre-budget review, during which the committee produced 92 recommendations. I obviously cannot read them all out, but I would like to share a few of them. The Minister of Finance disregarded most of these recommendations in his budget.

I introduced a bill to exempt psychotherapeutic services from the goods and services tax, but this topic is not addressed in the budget. I gave my colleague, the Minister of Finance, the opportunity to include my bill in his budget, but he chose not to do so, even though the Standing Committee on Finance recommended that such a bill be passed.

The following is recommendation 24 from the report of the Standing Committee on Finance regarding the Social Security Tribunal:

Review the Social Security Tribunal and consider restoring the following: Employment Insurance Boards of Referees, the EI Umpire, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and Old Age Security (OAS) Review Tribunals, and the Pensions Appeals Board in an effort to restructure the system.

Unfortunately, there is no review in the budget of the Social Security Tribunal, which is extremely deficient. I think that most of my colleagues have cases in their riding offices and are aware of the tribunal’s delays and inadequacy.

As well, recommendation 26 refers to a high-quality, inclusive child care system. There is nothing about that in the budget. The government is not acting on this recommendation. Then, recommendation 41 refers to home energy retrofit renovations. There is nothing about that in the budget, although that would have been a very good item. The Standing Committee on Finance agreed on that.

As for recommendations 65 and 66, they urge support for air transportation. There is nothing in the budget on that. There is also nothing about short-line railways, which are important to us, in Sherbrooke. However, this was addressed in the Standing Committee on Finance report. Lastly, recommendation 91 calls for the infrastructure program to be simplified and improved so that it actually serves communities such as Sherbrooke. There is nothing on that in the budget either.

I appeal to the government to correct the situation if they want my support. Obviously, this budget does not deserve my confidence.

[The Budget, March 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his remarks. He ended his speech by talking about the creation of an advisory council on the implementation of a national pharmacare program, so there is still a very long way to go. He even said that the Standing Committee on Health will soon be tabling a report on the issue, but that another report is needed to look into the implementation of a national pharmacare program.

Why then should I trust my colleague when he tells me that we are finally going to get a national pharmacare program, given that the Liberals made that promise many times over 20 years ago and have already examined the issue at length?

[International Trade, February 26th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, from softwood lumber to supply management, Canadian industries are under attack by the United States.

In January, the U.S. Department of Commerce decided to impose countervailing duties as high as nearly 10% on Canadian paper imports, and additional anti-dumping duties are expected next month.

Quebec is one of the world's biggest pulp and paper producers, and a good many jobs depend on that sector, including jobs in my region, the Eastern Townships.

Will the government stand up and defend the thousands of jobs that depend on this key industry?