Pierre Poilievre

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2017]

I am not alone, Mr. Speaker.

I think most Canadians would think that the man who directs our taxation regulations, subsidies, tariffs, and financial regulation policy in this country, and is responsible for $300 billion of public spending, would have a higher degree of public disclosure than a corporate executive. However, those who would expect that would be wrong, at least under the present government.

I found this particularly surprising, because when I was a parliamentary secretary, I opened a very meagre stock portfolio. I will not say exactly how much, but it was well shy of $30 million. I know the members of the House are shocked to hear that. I am the son of two teachers. The reality is that I did not have $30 million. I went to the Ethics Commissioner, and she said, “Yes, I am afraid that is going into a blind trust.” At the end of the day, I put that in a blind trust for as long as I held it and maintained that blind trust separate and out of my control.

We think a parliamentary secretary should not be able to know what he or she owns in the stock market. Why on God's green earth would we expect it to be appropriate for the finance minister to own tens of millions of dollars of interest without either putting it into a blind trust, divesting it altogether, or at the very least, telling the public what he holds?

During the Paul Martin era, he owned Canada Steamship Lines. I thought it was particularly egregious the way that finance minister arranged his affairs, reflagging his ships to avoid paying the same taxes he imposed on other Canadians. At least we could debate those facts in the Martin era, because we knew them. He, at least, to his credit, made clear to Canadians that he had this massive shipping empire under his command, and then subsequently under the command of his children while he was pulling the financial strings of the country.

Today we are expected to just trust the finance minister and assume he wants us to have blind trust in him, even though he does not have a blind trust himself. This is the same minister who already broke the requirements of the ethics act by covering up his offshore corporation in France, which owns his villa there, a villa that may produce rental income. That, of course, would not be taxed in Canada, because it would be held in that shell corporation offshore. Meanwhile, the minister wants to impose higher taxes on private corporations here in Canada, the mom and pop grocery stores that cannot afford the lawyers and consultants to set them up with offshore companies in France. They will pay higher taxes on their passive income while his policy allows him to continue to accumulate riches abroad, out of the reach of the same tax system he would impose on everyone else.

Going back to the parliamentary secretary, when that member from downtown Toronto told us over Twitter that his minister had a blind trust, someone asked him why. He responded that it is the “laaaaaaaaaw”, with nine letter a's to emphasize the importance of the law. I honestly believe that the member thought the minister would have to have a blind trust to function in any kind of ethical environment and avoid conflicts of interest.

We should all turn our thoughts to the junior staffers in ministers' offices who make modest middle-class incomes and have to put their $5,000 RRSPs in blind trusts. What must they think of a minister on the front bench who not only cannot be bothered to respect the same principle but who thinks he is entitled to hide his interests and potential conflicts from the Canadian people who pay his salary? That is emblematic of the kind of entitlement the millionaire finance minister and the millionaire Prime Minister have come to possess.

I understand why they would be out of touch. They do not appreciate that everyday Canadians do not have multi-million dollar trust funds handed down to them from their grandparents and their parents. The Prime Minister has been very blessed with what he likes to boast of as his family fortune. His grandfather ran an oil and gas empire, and the Prime Minister today is still living off the fruits of his grandfather's hard work and labour. The finance minister has been very blessed to come from a family that built a billion-dollar family business. Both of them are very well taken care of by these family trusts they enjoy and the inheritances that have been passed down to them. I do not begrudge their families their success, but I ask that they hold themselves to the same standard as everyone else.

Average Canadians pay higher taxes under the government. We saw how the finance minister and the Prime Minister meticulously designed a tax increase, targeted at local businesses and family farmers, that would protect their family fortunes. The billion-dollar family business of the finance minister, Morneau Shepell, is publicly traded, so it faced no new taxes under this latest attack on small businesses. The Prime Minister went out and boasted to the media that his family fortune would not be affected by any of the tax increases. Meanwhile, the hard-working entrepreneurs who started with nothing and built their way from the ground up were expected to pay taxes as high as 71%.

It is as though the finance minister and the Prime Minister were at the top of a castle wall looking down at the peasants and pulling up the ladder so that nobody could climb and join the court. This is the imagery the government creates when it protects the aristocratic wealth of the Prime Minister and the finance minister and prevents everyone else from having an opportunity to build a brighter future for themselves the same way the finance minister's father and the Prime Minister's grandfather were able to build for their families.

This comes back to the essential debate we are having in this country. On the other side, we see a desire for a government-run economy. Do not get me wrong. People are able to get rich; it is how they get rich. In a free market economy, people get rich by having the best product. In a government-run economy, people get rich by having the best lobbyists. A free market economy allows people to get ahead on merit. In a government-run economy, people get ahead on connections. In a free market economy, people can only be better off if they sell things that are worth more to them than what they paid for them. In a government-run economy, people get ahead by using political power to transform itself into financial power.

A free market system has allowed literally billions of people around the world to escape grinding poverty and achieve a better future for all. It is the greatest poverty-fighting machine ever invented. It is the best system we know. We understand that the government across the way does not believe in it. It believes in a government-directed economy, where insiders get ahead using their political power, where the power of force is used to extract money from the pockets of people who have earned it and to put it into the hands of those who have not.

Ours is a struggle for the hard-working middle-class people who put in a hard day's work for a better life. We ask that the Prime Minister and the finance minister prove that they share that same goal by revealing to all Canadians the vested interests they possess so that all of us can ensure that they are acting in the public interest and not in their narrow private interests.

[Business of Supply, October 17th, 2017]

moved:

That, given accusations by experts that the Minister of Finance’s family business, Morneau Shepell, stands to benefit from the proposed changes outlined in "Tax Planning Using Private Corporations" and assurances by the Minister that he has abided by his Public Declaration of Agreed Compliance Measures with respect to his family business, the House request that the Minister table all documents he submitted to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner between November 4, 2015, and July 18, 2017.

Mr. Speaker, the Finance Minister of Canada has awesome powers to help or hinder individual businesses, particularly those businesses that deal in products like pensions. A minister of finance knows beforehand about government decisions that move markets and push individual companies up or down, and his decisions can impact the direct bottom line of companies in which everyday Canadians invest and for which they work. No one in government has more power over taxation, regulations, tariffs, subsidies, or government bond auctions, all of which have direct impact on the fortunes of individual businesses.

He who has the most control over the nation's finances should have the most transparency over his interests. From those to whom much is given, much is asked. We give ministers the power to impact the lives of everyday people. We expect that they prove they are exercising those decisions in the public interest and not the private interest. This is especially true of the Minister of Finance, for whom these powers are so vast.

We are not dealing with an ordinary Minister of Finance. His father built a billion-dollar financial services firm. According to last available insider trader reports, the current finance minister held over $30-million worth of shares in that fine family business as of 2015. Since he became minister, he stopped disclosing his holdings, which is greatly ironic: we knew more about his interests before he was finance minister than we do now.

Public filings with the insider trading reports ensured that he, as a corporate executive, was accountable to his shareholders. He now has no similar accountability to the 35 million shareholders we call Canadian citizens. This company is of direct interest to the minister's department.

I will read from the Morneau Shepell website:

Morneau Shepell is the largest provider of pension administration technology and services in Canada. We offer a full range of solutions from software to full outsourcing of pension administration.

Who regulates pensions in Canada? It is the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. To whom does that office report? Why, it is the finance minister, and that office regulates “...1,200 pension plans”.

Interestingly, if we go to the Morneau Shepell website, it makes direct reference to that office, saying that the office appoints Morneau Shepell to wind down the pension plans of bankrupt companies. If a company pension plan is going under, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions needs someone to oversee the pension. In the meantime, it picks from a variety of providers. Of course, there is a financial benefit to whoever is selected, and Morneau Shepell brags on its website that it offers its own services to this office that reports directly to the finance minister.

There are broad and sweeping regulations at a national level to federally regulated pension plans. Of course, Morneau Shepell offers those pension plans. Pension plans also purchase government bonds. The finance minister sells government bonds.

Every year we have new issuances of government bonds as the government runs deficits and needs to borrow money and past bonds come to maturity and need to be renewed. They are sold to institutional investors, such as pension funds, of which Morneau Shepell is one. The finance minister's family business buys government bonds and the finance minister sells government bonds.

Then there is the issue of taxation. The finance minister, of course, is responsible for setting tax policy for the whole country. That is important for everyone, but especially for companies whose interests and activities are so dramatically impacted by tax levels and tax rules. Allow me to provide one example.

The minister proposed in his July 18 consultation paper to double tax the investment income private businesses earn within their companies. The result is that many of them would be forced to take their retirement savings out of their private companies and put them into individual pension plans, a unique and not well-understood product. A few Canadians hold them, and far fewer companies offer them. One of those companies is Morneau Shepell. The minister might say that he did not take that into consideration when he made his public policy proposal, but we do not know that, because we are not familiar with what holdings he continues to possess.

Furthermore, the minister has defended Canada's 40-year-long tax treaty with Barbados. That treaty allows Canadian companies and wealthy individuals to pay only 2.5% tax in Barbados and to then ship the rest of their profits back to Canada tax free. The minister's family business has registered a subsidiary in Barbados to take advantage of exactly those favourable tax conditions, so the finance minister is responsible for reviewing a tax treaty with a tax haven where his family business has a subsidiary.

Here is what we know about the finance minister. His father built a billion-dollar family business. As of 2015, the finance minister was receiving employment income from that family business, and as of that same year, he had $30 million in shares in that company. Since he has become minister, we no longer know if he holds on to those shares, and it is not because the minister has not been asked. He has been asked on probably a dozen occasions, and he simply refuses to answer. For the longest time, most people thought he could not answer. It is in a blind trust, so he would not know.

On Twitter late last week, I had an exchange with the Liberal member for downtown Toronto, who came leaping to the finance minister's defence by saying that the money is obviously in an arm's-length blind trust, so how could the minister possibly know where his money is, as it is all blinded to him. I do not blame that Liberal member for saying that, because most of the press gallery thought exactly the same thing. Everyone just assumed that if a finance minister has shares in a financial company, they would have to go into a blind trust.

Through two weeks of intrepid investigative journalism, The Globe and Mail finally was able to extract the fact that the minister does not have a blind trust, so he knows what he holds. He knows his assets. He knows what they are. Why will he not tell everyone else? Some might suggest that this is an intimate, private detail that we could not possibly ask someone to volunteer to strangers. That is an odd response, given that he was, as a corporate executive, forced to reveal exactly the same facts. Am I the only one who finds it peculiar that a corporate executive had a higher standard of public transparency than the Minister of Finance?

[Ethics, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, in his very first budget, the finance minister cancelled the small business tax cut, breaking a Liberal platform promise. Now they expect us to pat them on the back for unbreaking their promise. It is kind of like his Morneau Shepell subsidiary that he keeps in Barbados, a tax haven for which he is responsible for overseeing a review.

Are any of the measures he is proposing today planning to impose taxes on Morneau Shepell's assets in Barbados?

[Ethics, October 16th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance is always forgetting things. He forgot his keys. He forgot his villa in France. He forgot even the corporation he holds that villa inside of. He forgot the $30 million of shares in Morneau Shepell, and he forgot to put that into a blind trust. He forgot today to tax any of his own family fortune.

Why is it that the only thing that the minister does not forget is his wallet?

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2017]

Hire a new cartographer.

[Taxation, October 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the government refused to answer whether or not the Minister of Finance has been involved in discussions around the tax haven in Barbados. We learned this week, through filings that had been quietly made by the company Morneau Shepell, that the finance minister's billion-dollar family business has set up a subsidiary in that tax haven, meaning that his company will only pay 2.5% tax on monies that are earned there, while small businesses will pay tax rates as high as 73% under the unfair Liberal tax changes.

I ask again, has the finance minister absented himself from any discussions related to the tax haven in Barbados?

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this is what the company says. “[T]he existing and likely future delays resulting from the regulatory process, the associated cost implications and the increasingly challenging issues and obstacles facing the projects” has led the applicants to not proceed further with the project. That is the company.

The hon. member said yesterday, we won, they lost. Do members know who won? It was the dictators in Saudi Arabia and Venezuela who will continue to flood Canadian markets with their oil, but Canadian workers lost.

Why is it that the government is on the side of foreign dictators and not Canadian workers?

[Natural Resources, October 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Prime Minister claimed that energy east was cancelled because oil prices dropped. I have the letter here from TransCanada, the project's sponsor. It does not mention a word about oil prices, but it does say, “Notwithstanding these efforts, there remains substantial uncertainty around the scope, timing and cost associated with the regulatory review of the Projects.” After completing its review of these factors and the associated costs implicated with the regulatory process, they decided to withdraw the project.

Did the Prime Minister not know that the reason the project was cancelled was because of his regulatory obstacles, or did he know, and did he mislead the House?

[Health, October 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, The Miracle Marnie Foundation is a new organization that seeks to increase funding for childhood cancer research. It is named after the brave Marnie Geniole, and was founded by her father Thomas.

At two years old, Marnie was diagnosed with one of the rarest and least-understood cancers in the world: embryonal tumours with multilayered rosettes. Since then, she has been through three tumour-removal surgeries, three months of chemo, three stem cell transplants in Toronto, and 33 painful rounds of radiation at CHEO here in Ottawa.

However, only 4% of cancer research funding makes its way to childhood cancer treatment and research. Thomas and The Miracle Marnie Foundation want to change that, because 4% is not enough for our children. They are asking for a meeting with the Minister of Health. I look forward to bringing Thomas and Marnie to meet the Minister of Health and discuss how we can work together to fight all forms of childhood cancer so that children like Marnie will suffer no more.

[Taxation, October 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the question was not whether the Liberal government is spending more money on tax collectors, but with regard to the 40-year-long tax treaty with Barbados. We now find that the minister's billion-dollar family business has a subsidiary in that country. He is forbidden by an agreement with the Ethics Commissioner from being involved in any matters affecting that family business.

Can the hon. minister confirm that the Minister of Finance has absented himself from any matters related to the Barbados tax treaty?