Ziad Aboultaif

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 4th, 2016]

With regard to contracts under $10 000 granted by Shared Services Canada since January 1, 2016: what are the (i) vendors' names, (ii) contracts' reference and file numbers, (iii) dates of the contracts, (iv) descriptions of the services provided, (v) delivery dates, (vi) original contracts' values, (vii) final contracts' values if different from the original contracts' values?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 4th, 2016]

With regard to contracts under $10 000 granted by Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada since January 1, 2016: what are the (i) vendors' names, (ii) contracts' reference and file numbers, (iii) dates of the contracts, (iv) descriptions of the services provided, (v) delivery dates, (vi) original contracts' values, (vii) final contracts' values if different from the original contracts' values?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, November 4th, 2016]

With regard to contracts under $10 000 granted by Public Works and Government Services Canada since January 1, 2016: what are the (i) vendors' names, (ii) contracts' reference and file numbers, (iii) dates of the contracts, (iv) descriptions of the services provided, (v) delivery dates, (vi) original contracts' values, (vii) final contracts' values if different from the original contracts' values?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoy sitting with hon. member on the finance committee.

What the member just said is exactly true. If the plan is not working, then we have to be very quick to change the plan to make it workable for Canadians.

To go deeper into debt, spend more and more money, and throw it at something that is not working is insanity. By any measure of economic, financial, and business standards, it does not make sense. The government is going in the wrong direction, and we know that the result is going to be devastating for every Canadian.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the member opposite, and he does not agree with me, as usual. I knew that he would contradict what I said.

However, it is not a heroic act to borrow money, spend it on people, and then tell people that you are spending money on them when it is coming out of their pocket. It is bad management, bad financing, and bad for the economy.

If the member understands the basics of the economy, he would understand that when we borrow money we need to pay it back. When we do not have the money, we do not spend it, but keep playing low for when there are economic difficulties in order to be able to manage the people's money.

It is everyone's responsibility in this country to make sure that Canadians' money is not up for grabs by any politician in this country, like the current government is doing.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 2nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Finance admitted to Canadians, in his fall economic statement, that his ideas are just not working. That is not what he said, but it is what Canadians understood.

GDP growth is lower than he expected in his March budget. He plans for another $31.8 billion in borrowing over the next five years. This is a fantasy number, given that the original promise was to run a modest deficit of $10 billion annually. What the minister was really saying is that he plans to keep throwing taxpayers' money at the economy, because eventually something good may happen if the Liberals spend enough.

Such an attitude has not worked in the past, but I guess the Minister of Finance has not learned that those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat it.

As the Canadian debt numbers increase, the government hopes that somehow people will not notice. The Minister of Finance needs to tell Canadians what taxes he will hike and which programs he will cut to fund these expensive new promises. The Minister of Finance still has no plan to balance the budget, and the Liberals have no idea how to get Canadians back to work.

Given the gentleman's background in business before he entered political life, I am somewhat surprised that he is not more embarrassed by such a deficit, especially as he has no plan to turn things around. I can only surmise that he is also a student of history and understands that Liberal governments are only good at one thing: spending money that does not belong to them.

In March, the government was full of high praise for its budget. Eight months later, that praise seems more wishful thinking than reality. According to the parliamentary budget officer, job growth over the past year was half the average of the previous five years. There has been a drop in the number of full-time jobs. The PBO says that under the Liberal government, the Canadian economy has failed to create any new full-time jobs. That is a sad record.

The Prime Minister promised Canadians that if he borrowed billions of dollars, he would create jobs and grow the economy. Now, Liberals are full of excuses. Canadians must have missed the fine print. Borrowing billions has not created any jobs so far. A logical person would look at that record and conclude that that approach does not work. A rational person would look for an alternative that would help get Canadians back to work.

The Minister of Finance is borrowing more money, sinking the government and people further into debt under a spending program that has already been shown not to work. That suggests to me that he really has no idea what to do to create jobs.

The minister has announced changes to the Canada pension plan. This expansion will cost more than expected. Internal documents show that officials advised the minister that higher CPP premiums would be a drag on the economy until 2030, and that the negative impact on jobs would last until 2035. The PBO expects the fiscal cost of the expansion to reach $825 million a year by 2021-22, due to the tax deductibility of CPP premiums and increased spending on the working income tax credit.

When these changes are introduced, Canadians will take home less in their paycheques each week. The government wants us to think that the amount is not much, and that we will never notice it. However, every penny less in a person's pocket makes a difference to that person. The minister likes to think that increased CPP payments are not a tax, but money taken from a person's paycheque by the government is a tax.

A promise to return it with interest some years later remains just a promise. The government is good at making promises. It has not shown itself to be as good at actually delivering on those promises. For example, the government has promised a lot of money for infrastructure projects. The government says this money will create jobs. Well, we all know there are no jobs. No jobs have been created, so what has happened?

According to Bloomberg, out of the 860 infrastructure projects approved by the Liberals so far, only one has actually broken ground. That is not a very impressive track record. I wonder why the government did not choose to fund projects that were ready to proceed. Certainly, there was more than one infrastructure project planned in Canada this year that could have been implemented by now.

The government is also introducing new rules on mortgages that will make it harder for Canadians to buy a home. The Bank of Canada says that these new housing rules will cost the economy $6 billion by the end of 2018.

The role of government should be to create a fiscal environment in which businesses can create permanent jobs for the people of Canada. The government should not be introducing measure after measure that restricts economic growth and costs people their jobs. That would seem to be simple economics, but that has escaped the Liberals' grasp. Spending billions of taxpayer dollars with no results does not make sense.

We cannot spend our way to growth, just as we cannot tax our way to prosperity. What is needed is an economic plan, not a politically motivated and hastily conceived piece of legislation. These changes, by increasing government debt, will have a negative impact on all Canadians.

The results of the past year are dismal. We do not trust the Liberals to deliver results and, increasingly, neither do Canadians. Not only has their plan failed, Liberal tax hikes and red tape are making things worse.

First, they cancelled family tax credits for sports and art classes and cancelled the small business tax cuts. Now, they are imposing a CPP tax hike and a carbon tax that will cost families thousands of dollars every year.

The Liberals' only solution to those problems seems to be to borrow and spend even more money, money that will have to be paid back by Canadian workers, families, and job creators.

Conservatives understand that when we borrow money, we need to pay it back, with interest. That is why we are careful, not only with our own money but also with that entrusted to us by the taxpayers. I only wish that Liberals felt the same way and had respect for Canadian taxpayers.

The bill would implement measures from a budget that lacks concrete, targeted plans to stimulate economic innovation. In effect, it would ignore the pressing need to develop the latter initiatives. The government does not seem to know where it is going and how it will get there, but it plans to spend a lot of money along the road.

The lack of transparency surrounding the long-term costs of the Liberal economic policy is cause for serious concern. Canadians have the right to know how the government's fiscal plan, or lack of it, impacts them and the country. This not about the present; it is about the future of Canada. As custodians of taxpayers' hard-earned funds, it is our responsibility to act responsibly, not recklessly, with the nation's finances.

As the government moves deeper and deeper into deficit and the national debt grows increasingly large, someone, at some point, will be called upon to foot the bill. When our children and grandchildren are struggling to maintain essential services and climb out from under a mound of government debt, they will be asking why we failed to act in a responsible fashion. What will we tell them? Will we tell them that we truly believed budgets could balance themselves?

The Liberal economic plan has failed, and Canadians are paying for it. When it comes to managing the economy, we do not get a second chance.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, October 28th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, it has been all about the child benefit. It is very important to point out that the child benefit, the extra money the government is giving Canadians, is about $1 billion a year and is gradually going to come down towards 2020. It equals about $27.77 per capita. That is something that has to be known by the public, because all this bragging about the child benefit is not true and is not growing the economy.

The labour market report by the parliamentary budget officer says that job creation is half the average job creation compared to the past five years. Compared to the past five years of the previous Conservative government, the current government is creating only half, and that will be the trend until 2019.

Are the Liberals going to stop talking about the child benefit that is giving Canadians nothing and start talking about job creation?

[Tax Avoidance, October 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, the motion calls on the government to amend subsection 95(1) of the Income Tax Act and section 5907 of the income tax regulations to specify that no business that is entitled to a special tax benefit conferred by Barbados under the Canada-Barbados Income Tax Agreement Act, 1980, shall be exempt from taxation because of a tax treaty.

In essence, it asks the government to override the Canada-Barbados Income Tax Agreement Act. I appreciate the sentiments of the member who sponsored this legislation. It is refreshing to hear members of the Bloc Québécois, with ideas for the benefit of Canada, proposing legislation that would increase revenue for the Government of Canada. That being said, I do not feel that this motion should be supported.

The underlying premise would seem to be to score some political points and condemn Canadians who use foreign shell companies for tax avoidance purposes. Given recent publicity regarding the Canada Revenue Agency and offshore tax havens, that is bound to be a popular topic, but popularity and good legislation are not always the same thing, just as tax avoidance and tax evasion are not the same thing.

Canadians all want to do what they can to avoid paying tax that they do not owe. It is when they cross the line of the law into tax evasion that governments need to take notice and act. I think this motion confuses the two and seeks to condemn those individuals and companies who are doing something perfectly legal.

This year, we celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Barbados, which were established on November 30, 1966, the day that Barbados became an independent country. However, our relationship goes back much further than that. The Canadian Trade Commissioner Service first established an office in Barbados in 1907. This long-standing connection explains in part why many Canadian financial institutions have long had a prominent presence in Barbados.

Barbados and Canada have several bilateral financial agreements, including a 1986 social security agreement, a 1997 foreign investment protection agreement, and a 1980 double taxation agreement, which we are discussing today. Barbados is part of Canada's constituency at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. We have ties through the Commonwealth, sharing a heritage as former British colonies.

I think that behind this current motion is the belief that its implementation would somehow magically result in more money in the hands of the Government of Canada. This is not necessarily the case. There are plenty of other tax havens globally. I cannot see that should Canada decide to unilaterally alter this agreement there would be any net benefit for our country. Those who are law-abiding people would not be paying more. Those who are hiding money from the Canada Revenue Agency would, I suspect, find somewhere else to hide their funds. The matter is more multifaceted than is accounted for under the motion.

The Canada-Barbados Income Tax Agreement Act was designed to limit double taxation and prevent fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income and capital. It applies to residents of both Canada and Barbados. It was first signed in 1980, with an amendment in 2011. Amendments were made at that time primarily to follow in the framework of OECD treaty models, and to ensure that holding corporations, trusts, or partnerships that hold Canadian investments in real property and resource properties will be subject to Canadian taxation on sales of the shares of the holding corporation or the interests in the partnerships or trusts.

There is a general international tax principle that the country in which immovable property is located should have the right to tax the gains from the disposition of such property. The Canada-Barbados Income Tax Agreement Act is flexible, with the intention to limit unfair and inefficient double taxation practices.

I support the act. The Conservative Party supports the act. This motion to override the act's provisions should be regarded skeptically. To suggest that Canada should unilaterally decide not to live up to an agreement we have signed is, in my opinion, irresponsible.

To support the Canada-Barbados Income Tax Agreement Act, 1980, is not to suggest support for tax evasion. In 2013, the Conservative government, in order to enhance the integrity of the tax system, created the stop international tax evasion program, aimed at reducing international tax evasion and avoidance. That the Canada Revenue Agency gained three times as much new revenue as was expected from the measures introduced in the 2013 budget is a tribute to Conservative management. The Conservative Party has a strong, successful record of standing up to international tax avoidance.

Canadians believe in a fair tax system. All of us want to know that we are being treated fairly and equally under the law. While the Conservative Party frowns upon tax evasion, it also upholds the view that this practice may be a response to unfavourable tax regimes within Canada. We believe that with fair taxation, there will be less desire on the part of some Canadians to look to other jurisdictions and to search for ways to avoid and evade Canadian taxation.

The Conservatives understand that when we make tax rates fair, when we make the system easier to navigate, it encourages businesses to invest in Canada. However, when we increase taxes, such as has been done with the recent payroll tax increases in the Canada pension plan, we discourage investment and kill Canadian jobs.

Investors, both domestic and foreign, are looking for a stable business climate where government understands the importance of allowing the private sector to lead job creation efforts. Creating an unstable business climate by, for example, unilaterally changing a long-standing international agreement is guaranteed to convince entrepreneurs that Canada is not worth the risk.

I can see that the actions of the current government, which has deferred the tax cut for small business to some mythical future date, would cause many businesses to investigate opportunities in other jurisdictions that might provide more consistent tax policies. That Canadian corporations legally transferred a record amount to tax havens in 2015 can be seen as a resounding vote of non-confidence in the Liberal government.

This, indeed, is a problem that should be addressed, but this motion is not the way to address it.

[Canada Pension Plan, October 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite was speaking about visiting many seniors. We all have seniors we visited. We all knocked on many doors.

However, the way his minister and his government have handled this, it does not seem that they knocked on any doors or visited and spoke to any seniors. Those seniors the member is talking about are not going to benefit at all from this tax hike. This is a tax hike on businesses first and on people next. This is going to be very costly.

True stories are not being told to those seniors, because if they were really knocking on doors and were hearing true stories, they would know that this will be a tax burden on them, on future generations, and on small businesses. This is not going to help them.

[Campaign Volunteers, October 21st, 2016]

Madam Speaker, as I reflect on the first anniversary of my election as the member of Parliament for Edmonton Manning, I want to pay tribute to Paul Cetinski.

Before last year's vote, Paul tirelessly distributed campaign literature to rural areas of the riding, making sure everyone heard the message. He is an example of the countless volunteers who are the lifeblood of political campaigns and the backbone of democracy in our great nation.

In every riding across the country, every campaign, every party, there are many Paul Cetinskis. They are the unsung heroes of political life. We in the House know how politics is a team effort, the work of dedicated Canadians who give of their time and talent for the good of the country.

Let us salute volunteers like Paul Cetinski.