Pierre-Luc Dusseault

[Petitions, April 10th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, a petition signed by the people of Sherbrooke and the surrounding area, calling for an independent public commission of inquiry into the Lac-Mégantic tragedy. The signatories are still worried about rail safety. They would like to shed light on the tragedy so that the necessary measures can be taken to fix our rail system.

[Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions Act, April 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I was saying that there has been a form of unanimity on the bill, and that we must be careful with tax treaties on the whole.

The bill was introduced and debated because we want to modernize tax conventions to prevent them from being abused, as the government itself has stated. At committee, for one, the government said that tax conventions were being abused. Bill C-82 can help with this by modernizing these conventions and ensuring that they are not abused in future.

It is an admission of guilt by the government to recognize that, although the conventions have good intentions, some taxpayers abuse them. The bill will clarify the language of these conventions to ensure that this no longer occurs and that the courts have more teeth to enforce the provisions of the convention pertaining to the fight against tax evasion. This bill attempts to address the loopholes in these conventions.

The fundamental problem, which was also brought up in committee, is that the modernization of these treaties requires the support of both countries that are party to the tax treaties. There are 93 treaties, and not only will Canada have to ratify Bill C-82, but the co-contracting country will also have to ratify an equivalent bill in its own jurisdiction so that the instrument can be implemented in both countries and the new and improved treaty can be applied. In my opinion, that severely limits the future scope of the bill.

What we were told in committee is that both countries are indeed required to complete the ratification process for the convention to take effect. To date, only 12 to 15 countries have ratified this sort of bill and done the same thing that Canada is in the process of doing today. That means there are still about 80 countries that have not yet taken such action and may not even be in the process of doing so. The best example I can give is that of Barbados. Barbados signed the document during a nice photo op. The only thing the country has not done is initiate its own legislative process, which is required to implement the convention.

I find that troubling, because I am not convinced that all the partners of these 93 countries are going to sign them. This legitimizes to some extent the countries that are so-called tax havens, which will continue to exist and might just sign the document for a nice photo op but do nothing afterwards. That will only perpetuate the problem. If this instrument is going to improve the treaty, both countries have to sign it. If either country does not sign it, there is absolutely no point to the treaty, and we will be left with the old system, the old treaty that, by the government's own admission, is not working properly and has loopholes that the courts cannot close. That is the legal and inherent limit to this bill, which means that its enforcement will also be quite limited.

It will be up to us to look at it again in the future. It will be up to legislators and the government to keep a close eye on the situation in other countries. Having nice signing ceremonies is all well and good, but if we cannot move forward and if we decide to let it go and not assume our responsibilities, we will wind up with the same problem.

One thing that was clearly stated during the committee's study was that this bill might be limited in scope, so we need to take a closer look at that. We also need to make sure that we are monitoring the countries we have these agreements with over time.

Bill C-82 will make for better treaties. I would like to thank the NDP for that because we are the ones who, for years, have been urging the government to renegotiate all the tax treaties people are abusing. Members may recall that, two years ago, my caucus was behind a motion the House adopted to, among other things, renegotiate tax treaties. We should all thank the NDP leader for his insistence on tax fairness, because it is thanks to him that renegotiation is happening now.

We will have to make sure that everyone follows through on these promises and that the new instrument is implemented by the countries with which we have signed treaties.

[Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions Act, April 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to have these 11 minutes to speak to Bill C-82 and share my opinion on it as part of the debate and before it is eventually voted on at third reading in the House and sent to the other chamber.

As we saw at report stage, this bill has the unanimous support of the House. All members voted to support it. It has not been the subject of heated debates, from what I saw today, although it is relatively important. I will try not to repeat too much of what I said at second reading before it was referred to committee. On that point, the committee study went pretty well. There were no amendments to this bill, but still, there were some good debates. I will try to summarize them for the House to illustrate some of the dangers possibly in store for us regarding this bill, which simply aims to update the tax treaties we already have with 93 countries around the world. That said, it is anything but simple.

Concluding tax agreements with countless countries has almost become Canada's trademark. Other countries do not have so many tax agreements. Nevertheless, these tax treaties are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they help avoid double taxation. In other words, companies and individuals are not taxed twice on the same income. That makes sense when we are talking about similar administrations with similar tax rates. Obviously a person should not have to pay twice on the same income in two different places, especially when their tax rate is similar. It makes sense to establish this type of connection with other countries to eliminate double taxation, whether informally or formally, as in the case of the 93 countries with which we have such agreements. This allows individuals and companies to have a residence in either country and be taxed according to their country of residence.

However, it makes less sense to sign tax treaties with tax havens. That is what Canada is doing with its trademark tax treaties, but it is sort of glossing over the fact that it has signed treaties with tax havens like Barbados, which has a tax rate of 0.5% to 2% for foreign corporations.

Canada's trademark is even seeping into its tax policy. It will not say so openly, but it is very happy to have a treaty with Barbados, a country where Canadians invest heavily year after year. Barbados is often the third or fourth biggest destination for Canadian foreign direct investment, after the United States and the United Kingdom.

That is no coincidence. It is not because the Barbadian economy is booming, because tons of new hotels and banks are going up, because its population is flourishing and wealthy, or because things are hopping there. It is simply because the government's unspoken tax policy allows Canadian companies to outsource their subsidiaries abroad; they can open a subsidiary in Barbados, which they use as a Canadian financial centre from which to run their international business instead of establishing a headquarters in Canada and doing business out of Canada. That is why we need to be cautious and make sure tax treaties are being used appropriately in cases where countries have similar administrations.

[Multilateral Instrument in Respect of Tax Conventions Act, April 8th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring the debate back to the issue before us today, tax treaties.

Does my colleague have an opinion on concluding tax treaties with administrations where the tax rate is extremely low compared to the tax rate in Canada? These tax treaties can become loopholes for certain multinationals that manage to transfer their international profits to these places. Instead of declaring their income in Canada, they declare it in these places that have agreements with Canada. I would like my colleague's opinion on these agreements, to come back to the matter at hand today.

[Claude LeBlanc, April 4th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to pay tribute to Claude LeBlanc, a great man from Sherbrooke who passed away recently. He was taken from us far too soon.

Mr. LeBlanc spent his whole life, right up to the very end, working to improve the quality of life of the people of Sherbrooke.

One of the projects that was very important to him in recent years was the installation of automated external defibrillators. It is estimated that 85% of cardiac arrests occur in places outside of hospital and that nearly 30% of those who are saved are under the age of 40. We also know that, if defibrillation is performed on a person within four minutes of going into cardiac arrest, that person has a 75% chance of survival.

There is no doubt that Claude's hard work and dedication saved the lives of many people in the Eastern Townships. He was very convincing. However, his mission is not complete. We must carry on because there is still a lot of work to be done.

As recently as two months ago, Claude and his partner, Dr. Wayne Smith, came to me with the idea of a law that would require the installation of defibrillators in federal buildings and federally regulated businesses.

I am therefore asking everyone here to consider this idea and to continue the work that was started by Mr. LeBlanc. That is what he would ask us to do if he were still with us today.

Thank you, Claude.

[Canada Revenue Agency, April 3rd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this answer and the Prime Minister's answer both clearly indicated that offenders would face the consequences of their actions.

However, the answer that was just given clearly indicates that offenders have still not faced any consequences. As a result, my supplementary question has to do with the results obtained by the Canada Revenue Agency.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue once again mentioned the investigations, searches and audits being conducted by the Canada Revenue Agency, but the government has no evidence to show Canadians that its fight against tax evasion has been effective.

Once again, while Canadians are filling out their income tax returns, can the parliamentary secretary tell us what tangible results the government has achieved in the fight against tax evasion and can she tell us about the convictions that have been made and the white collar criminals who have been sent to prison through the CRA's efforts?

The government has been in power for nearly four years now and there have been three financial scandals involving information leaks.

When will there be even just one conviction? People can be sent to prison for international tax evasion.

[Canada Revenue Agency, April 3rd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to raise an extremely important issue, as Canadians are preparing their tax returns to pay the taxes owed to government.

The Auditor General's fall 2018 report could not have been clearer. The NDP has known and has has been saying for years that Canada has a two-tiered tax system. The Auditor General, who is independent, came to the same conclusion as the NDP that Canada has a two-tiered tax system: one for the rich and one for all other taxpayers.

Canadians are filing their taxes, and they are right to be worried and to feel that this system is unfair. I can understand those who are unhappy to see news reports about information leaks, such as the Bahamas leaks, the paradise papers and the Panama papers. There are more and more leaks, and they show that the wealthy, those with the most money in their pockets, can afford to pay tax lawyers big bucks to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Canadians are understandably frustrated.

After reading about these leaked papers on tax havens, they feel even more frustrated to see that the Auditor General has also come to the conclusion that we have a two-tiered tax system. People who can afford to have trusts, bank accounts in tax havens or numbered companies around the world, mainly in low-tax jurisdictions, can avoid paying their fair share of taxes. People are frustrated that these taxpayers are able to hide their money from the Canadian taxman.

When the CRA realizes that something is afoot, it gives these taxpayers more time to answer the agency's questions. The agency gives them more latitude to respond, even though they use all sorts of tax schemes. However, when the average taxpayer honestly forgets to declare $1, $10 or $100, the CRA comes down on them like a ton of bricks to recover these small amounts.

First, these taxpayers cannot afford to hire tax lawyers to look after their affairs and, most importantly, they do not have the means to defend themselves against the CRA when it knocks on their door to collect what is owing.

Canadians are frustrated to see that the CRA always grants extensions to wealthy taxpayers with fortunes stashed abroad. The CRA agrees to extend their deadlines and sometimes even grants amnesties. We all remember the KPMG scandal. That may jog some taxpayers' memory. What happened was that people were caught participating in a tax scheme involving the Isle of Man, and the CRA offered them amnesty. Even though they had been caught red-handed, their debts were written off, and they got off scot-free. Smaller taxpayers do not get that kind of treatment from the CRA.

What has the government done since the Auditor General tabled his report? What has it done to remedy the situation and finally start moving towards a fairer tax system? At the very least, there needs to be an appearance of justice for taxpayers, who are preparing their tax returns as we speak.

[Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers Act, April 3rd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate.

First off, I want to thank the senator who tabled this bill in the other place for getting it to the House of Commons. I commend him for his hard work and his initiative. I really respect everything he has done over the past few years to fight tax evasion. Measuring the tax gap, the issue at the heart of this bill, is also one of his primary concerns.

As I mentioned earlier in my question, the bill would require data to be provided to the Parliamentary Budget Officer so that he can independently analyze and calculate the tax gap. The tax gap is a measure of the government's annual tax losses relative to the Canadian economy and the global economy. Tax gap estimation is quite complex. The tax gap provides a gauge of how much money the Government of Canada is losing because of its unfair tax system.

Canada's unfair tax system also makes it possible for some taxpayers, especially rich taxpayers, to avoid paying taxes in Canada. These people can afford to hire tax lawyers who charge $500 an hour and who know how to work the system so their clients do not have to contribute to public services and infrastructure in our society. Calculating the tax gap is extremely important, because it tells us whether our efforts are paying off. This government is not calculating the tax gap because it does not mind missing out on several billion dollars every year.

We in the NDP understand the immeasurable losses caused by national and international tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. Aggressive tax avoidance also seeks to circumvent our laws, which is another part of the problem. Each transaction in isolation is legal, but when put together, the transactions amount to immoral acts. Tax lawyers are not always the most ethical individuals.

The ultimate goal of calculating the tax gap is to check whether our efforts are paying off. If we were to calculate the tax gap for 2019, for example, and if the government had a plan to address tax evasion, we should be able to see whether any progress has been made in five or ten years.

The biggest problem for the Liberal government is that they do not have any results to show Canadians when it comes to fighting tax evasion. For three years the Minister of National Revenue has been saying over and over again that the Liberal government invested $1 billion in the Canada Revenue Agency to fight tax evasion and that it hired 1,300 auditors.

When people hear that they say that the government is committing a lot of financial and human resources to fighting tax evasion. They also say that such considerable efforts should lead to results, but that is not the case. The government has nothing to show Canadians.

Just this week the Minister of National Revenue announced that searches were conducted in Vancouver last week. That seemed to be the best thing she could announce to Canadians on the tax evasion file. There were three tax scandals in recent years, the Panama papers, the paradise papers, and the Bahamas leaks, but the minister was very proud to announce those searches. She seemed pleased to see that progress was being made on this file even though we are far from seeing charges and even farther from securing convictions.

The government's four-year mandate is coming to an end, and it is still at the search warrant stage, when we should be seeing results. The government may have invested $1 billion and hired 1,300 auditors, but it still has nothing to show Canadians.

To make matters worse, the Liberals will try to make people believe that they have obtained results, as the Minister of National Revenue has already done on several occasions. When we asked her what the results were, she talked on various occasions about 78 convictions. The number varied. Sometimes it was higher and sometimes lower.

When we pressed further and asked her about the convictions in question, we realized that they all had to do with domestic tax evasion. However, there is a rather big difference between domestic and international tax evasion.

When my NDP colleagues and I asked questions about international tax evasion, we were told that there had been convictions. Saying that amounts to misleading Canadians. In fact, the minister was forced to acknowledge that. Her officials had to acknowledge that in committee. When we asked them how many convictions there had been for international tax evasion, they had to admit that there had not been any. There have been no convictions for international tax evasion. That is the Liberal government's track record. That is the reality.

The Liberals may say that they are working on it and moving mountains to tighten the net, but the net is still wide open. The basic problem here is that the tax laws are still too lax, too flexible, too elastic. Taxpayers who can afford to hire tax lawyers are able to avoid paying their fair share and to get off scott-free when they are caught. When CRA investigators are faced with that situation, they can only say to themselves that the tax laws are so lax that they can do nothing about it. That is the crux of the problem. The government does not want to acknowledge it. That is the reason for the lack of results.

If they do not address the root of the problem, hiring 1,300 people and investing $1 billion will not make a difference, because the laws are too lax. They do not want to acknowledge that either. They do not want to deal with tax flexibility, which is the root of the problem.

This is why Bill S-243 is so important. If we can measure the tax gap and monitor any progress, we may finally have some way to see whether the government is making progress on combatting tax evasion. This would also give us a clear picture of international and domestic convictions for tax evasion in a report that would be presented by the agency. The two types could be separated in the agency's public reports. The real problem here is that the minister does not distinguish between the two. That may be because she does not know the difference. We would have to ask her.

The Liberal government is showing a serious lack of transparency, which is why the senator introduced this bill and shepherded it this far. He can see it, as can all of us on this side of the House. Even the Conservatives have woken up, even though they were the ones who fought the former parliamentary budget officer to avoid giving him information. They have woken up and joined us in demanding results and demanding meaningful action on tax evasion.

I will be happy to support this initiative. I hope that my colleagues will join me so that we can shed some light on the Canada Revenue Agency and finally see results over time. This will help us understand whether our efforts are working and change course if we find that our efforts are inadequate. So far, the government's efforts have not been working.

I hope that the government will support this initiative, which would be in line with its claims of wanting transparency and openness. It now has an opportunity to demonstrate transparency and openness at the Canada Revenue Agency.

[Fairness for All Canadian Taxpayers Act, April 3rd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his initiative and for the speech he gave at the beginning of the debate on this Senate bill, which has three very worthwhile objectives. I am pleased that my Conservative colleague has joined the movement to call for more transparency within the Canada Revenue Agency, to calculate the tax gap and to share information with the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

However, since my colleague is a Conservative, I would like him to shed some light on what happened between the time when the Conservatives were in power and today. The Parliamentary Budget Officer fought long and hard to get this data and finally managed to get a positive response from the current government. However, he had to threaten to take the government to court to get it, particularly because Mr. Harper's Conservative government absolutely did not want to provide him with that information.

Can my colleague tell me what happened since the time when Mr. Harper's Conservative government was in power? Why are today's Conservatives proposing this initiative?

[Sherbrooke, April 1st, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you about my constituency, the wonderful riding of Sherbrooke. The city of Sherbrooke is a beacon of diversity. From our cultural backgrounds to the languages we speak, the religions we practice and even the way we look and the clothes we wear, the people of Sherbrooke are proud to be unique and diverse. I am proud to say that these differences are our strength; we celebrate and foster them.

Last week, as part of Action Week Against Racism, I attended the diversity gala hosted by SAFRIE, a support agency for refugee and immigrant families in the Eastern Townships. The hundreds of attendees took in artistic performances put on by many citizens of Sherbrooke from diverse backgrounds who were proud of their roots and happy to share their culture with their host community.

This week we are also celebrating movies from around the world at the Sherbrooke global film festival from April 4 to 11. Festival-goers are invited to experience movies differently, to discover the world through the eyes of movie makers from here and abroad, and to experience the diversity of the film industry.

I invite my fellow Canadians to join me in celebrating Sherbrooke's diversity and experience what the world has to offer.