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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 187

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 28, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 187 - Apr/28/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Apr/28/23 10:40:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was saying in my concluding remarks, it is very important that the provinces be on board. Many provinces are showing leadership already. I think it is one of the virtues of the way the government is proceeding on this that provinces will be able to onboard and provide information out of their own registries into the federal registry. I understand there has been a lot of discussion between the federal government and the provinces. What I would say with respect to the tax fairness points that my colleague raised is simply this. As Canadians, we look around at other jurisdictions and see revelations like the Panama papers and others. We hear the government talk about investing in recovering some of those funds, but the record is that Canada has not and other jurisdictions have. When we hear about the resources given to the CRA, they seem to be spent more on chasing the poor to recover CERB funds, which they were encouraged to get by this very government, while the big tax cheats are getting away with it, either through tax havens or through the Canada wage subsidy program, from which the government has not even deigned to try to recover a dime.
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Context: House Hansard - 187 - Apr/28/23
Mr. Daniel Blaikie
  • Apr/28/23 10:43:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the short answer is no. The work will not end with the passage of this bill. I would say it is not a matter of resources, because the Canada Revenue Agency has a lot of resources, but rather a matter of resource allocation. The agency is heavily focused right now on recovering CERB overpayments from Canadians who are already experiencing financial hardship. When it comes to the high rollers with deep pockets, however, the agency leaves them alone. It really is a resource allocation issue. The Agency needs to focus on these high rollers. It has to stop chasing after people who do not have the means to repay the CERB—that is not a wise investment. It should be chasing down people who have the money to pay back what they owe.
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Context: House Hansard - 187 - Apr/28/23
Mr. Kevin Lamoureux
  • Apr/28/23 1:29:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government has not let the big fish off the hook. There are hundreds of millions of dollars, getting close to a billion dollars, and it may be just over a billion dollars, but do not quote me on that, over the last number of years that we have invested in the CRA to look at going after the big fish. We have seen a dramatic increase of files now that the CRA is pushing as a direct result of those investments. With regard to issues that the member talked about in terms of CERB, I am not too sure exactly what the NDP's opinion is. Based on some of the comments I heard, and please correct me if I am wrong, the NDP seems to be of the opinion that circumstances do not matter, that the CRA should not be going after people in whatever form CERB was collected. I think that there—
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