Pierre-Luc Dusseault

[Business of Supply, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask for the unanimous consent of the House to move a motion, but, with your indulgence, I would first like to provide a little bit of context for the House.

Canada has signed two new tax information exchange agreements with recognized tax havens, and the intent of these agreements is clear. We have been told that the agreement will trigger the application of Canada's taxation laws, which means that the active business income from a Canadian company's foreign subsidiary can be paid to the Canadian parent company in the form of dividends that are exempt from Canadian taxes.

Considering that the policy on tabling of treaties in Parliament provides for a 21-day period before the House can rule on these treaties, I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion: that this House, pursuant to the procedure described in the policy on tabling of treaties in Parliament, refuse to consent to the passage of the agreement between Canada and Grenada for the exchange of information on tax matters and the agreement between Canada and Antigua and Barbuda for the exchange of information on tax matters.

[Taxation, February 15th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals say they want to combat tax evasion, but the agreements signed with Grenada and Antigua and Barbuda clearly do the opposite.

To be clear, provisions in both agreements allow the active business income from a Canadian company's foreign affiliate to be paid to the Canadian parent company in the form of dividends that are exempt from Canadian taxes.

It could not be any clearer. It is written in black and white in the agreements.

How can the government and the minister defend such bad agreements?

[Indigenous Peoples and Canada's Justice System, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask a quick, general question about citizen participation on juries. Can the parliamentary secretary tell us whether this issue was raised during the discussions on the criminal justice reform?

Does the government intend to support citizen participation on juries by giving jurors better financial compensation and breaking down some of the barriers that prevent people from doing jury duty, such as geographical and financial barriers?

[Petitions, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am also presenting an e-petition signed by 986 individuals regarding the Canadian government's compensation program for dairy farmers in light of the signing of CETA.

The petitioners denounce the fact that sheep and goat dairy farms suffered enormous harm by being willfully excluded from the Government of Canada's dairy business program simply because they are not cow dairy farms.

These petitioners are calling on the government to rectify this injustice and to create a compensation program so that our sheep and goat dairy businesses can also receive financial support just like Canadian cow dairy farms.

[Petitions, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.

The first is signed from people across Canada who are calling on the government to take action regarding the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. They are calling on Canada to put an end to illegal organ trafficking, which takes place with the consent of the Chinese regime. They are calling on the government to demand that the Chinese government stop persecuting practitioners and to bring former leader Jiang Zemin and his accomplices to justice.

[Marijuana, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the number of ties between the Liberal Party of Canada, companies that produce cannabis, and investments from tax havens is simply mind-boggling.

On top of that, the secretive operations of shell companies in tax havens really raise concerns about who is ultimately making money from those companies.

The government simply failed to establish strict rules governing the financing of that industry, and the proposed regulatory framework is a smokescreen.

What are the Prime Minister's real intentions in legalizing cannabis? Is it simply so that friends of the Liberal Party of Canada can make more money?

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her excellent speech.

I know that my colleague has a lot of hope in general, but on this issue, I wonder whether under the current Liberal government she will still be able to keep that hope alive.

Two of the most influential people in cabinet, namely the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, have no idea what it is like to not be able to eat three meals a day. When they say the words “middle class”, they have no idea what that represents. Their idea on paper is of a middle class that earns between $80,000 and $160,000 a year, because in their tax cuts for the middle class, those are the ones who will benefit the most.

Does my colleague really believe in the government’s will or its understanding to solve the problems of inequity in our society?

[Business of Supply, February 8th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for her remarks, although her lofty speeches are clearly light years removed from reality.

The reality is that, since they supported our motion to review or repeal our tax treaties and our tax information exchange agreements with tax havens, which implicitly allow companies to repatriate money without paying tax, they have signed three more. That is the reality.

In their speeches, the Minister of National Revenue and her parliamentary secretary always talk about $1 billion and 78 convictions. Before the holidays, we learned that none of these 78 convictions, not even one or two, had to do with offshore tax evasion.

Some countries have already started recovering money, sometimes more than $500 million, in the wake of the Panama papers implicating the Bahamas, Mossack Fonseca and all that. Here in Canada, we have yet to act on the information in those leaked documents to recover any money. We are told that court proceedings take time and that settlements may be made out of court. It follow, then, that there will be preferential treatment. That is the reality in Canada.

Can my colleague at least tell us that that reality will change and that things will finally be different at the Canada Revenue Agency than they were when the Conservatives were in power? So far, it is business as usual.

[Lac-Mégantic, February 7th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, the end of the Lac-Mégantic disaster trial closes a sad, unfortunate, and painful chapter in history that Quebecers and Canadians will never forget.

Although an important page has been turned in the justice system, there is still a great deal of work to be done to ease the psychological pain of Lac-Mégantic residents. A good start would be to remove the constant source of anxiety that passes through downtown Lac-Mégantic on a daily basis.

Unfortunately, the end of this chapter also brings to light the fact that someone else should have been among those held responsible for this terrible accident: the Government of Canada. Deregulation, self-regulation, underfunding of inspection activities, general neglect, blind faith in private companies, and exemptions granted to carriers known to be negligent all contributed to this tragedy.

The government got off easy, but I hope that it has learned an important lesson from this event and will never again turn a blind eye to the dangerous and negligent practices of private companies that value profit above safety.

[Canada Revenue Agency, February 6th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, get this: a Canadian mining exploration company is operating in Mongolia, and it is reporting $2.1 billion in profit in a Luxembourg-based corporation with one part-time employee, all of this with the Canada Revenue Agency’s blessing. It would seem, then, that the cat is out of the bag. The minister is facilitating these dubious tax schemes.

In the fight against tax evasion, why is the minister part of the problem rather than the solution?