44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 28, 2023 10:00AM
Madam Speaker, during the first part of my speech, in March, I spoke in favour of this bill. It is a good bill. It is a step toward transparency that will help fight tax evasion and fraud.
The bill is respectful of the provinces. In fact, Quebec's registry has been in place for almost a month.
However, the tax cheats who were exposed in the Paradise papers did not create their shell companies in Canada; they created them in tax havens. The bill does nothing to address that. The work has only just begun.
Cracking down on fraudsters who use tax havens requires a global registry—not just a registry of the real company owners, but also a registry of real beneficial owners of trusts. I am thinking, for example, of the real beneficial owners of the Isle of Man trusts that KPMG Canada created for Canadian tax evaders, the ones who were granted amnesty by the Canada Revenue Agency. It sounds like a huge undertaking, but it is not. In fact, this registry already exists to a large extent, and it is maintained, for one, in Luxembourg by a consortium of financial institutions. Even tax cheats like their banks to know they have assets somewhere; it is good for their credit.
This registry is available to financial institutions, but not to governments that want to go after fraud. I think we can all agree that there is something wrong with that. Transparency, public registries and so on are excellent tools against fraud, but they do nothing against profiteers, against those who take advantage of all the loopholes in the Income Tax Act to use tax havens legally. Those individuals do not need to hide their income. All they need is a good accountant to make sure their income is not taxable, even when it is declared.
The United States forced Canada's hand by imposing its idea of endorsing a 15% minimum global tax rate at the G20. The latest budget introduces Joe Biden's minimum global tax rate. Using tax havens will become less attractive, but the government is doing the bare minimum to fight tax havens. Income repatriated from tax havens that have information exchange agreements with Canada remains tax-free. This has to stop.
Yes, we will support Bill C-42, but it does not go far enough. A registry is good, but tax fairness is better.
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- Apr/28/23 10:14:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know that the federal registry is not enough to fight money laundering because most small and medium-sized businesses in Canada are regulated by the individual provinces and territories.
Does my Bloc Québécois colleague think that the Government of Quebec could enter into an agreement with the federal government to improve the federal level's capacity to fight money laundering while respecting Quebec's jurisdictions?
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- Apr/28/23 10:15:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question, which he asked in excellent French. I really appreciate that.
In my opinion, what we are seeing in this bill is a possible harmonization with the provinces. It seems to be respectful of the rights of the provinces. For example, Quebec has had its own registry for a month now. This will require collaboration and information sharing, as with all countries around the world, but things seem to be on the right track. Obviously, we must always do more to fight against money laundering, and our job is to remain vigilant to ensure that everything works well and that we can do more.
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- Apr/28/23 10:24:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, creating a public, searchable corporate registry would ensure a much higher sense of accountability, and the government over the last number of years has expressed its interest in ensuring that everyone is paying their fair share when it comes to taxes and that there is more transparency. However, it is also important to recognize, as I did in the previous question I asked the member's colleague, that there have been significant amounts of financial resources allocated to the CRA. That money is there to support the idea of looking at who the people are who are paying taxes.
I am wondering if my colleague could provide his thoughts. It is great that Ottawa is doing it and the Province of Quebec is moving forward on it, but it is really important that we see consistency from coast to coast, with other provinces and territories also providing similar legislation.
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- Apr/28/23 11:25:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in Quebec, French is declining as the language spoken at work. French is declining as the language spoken at home. The proportion of people whose first official language learned is French is declining. In short, French is declining across Quebec.
However, the Liberals' official languages action plan invests hundreds of millions of dollars in promoting English in Quebec. The entire portion available for Quebec focuses on English. Can the Liberals explain how providing huge amounts of funding for English in Quebec will slow the decline of French?
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- Apr/28/23 11:27:05 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not need lessons from anyone when it comes to being open-minded.
We heard a real gem from the Minister of Official Languages yesterday. She said her action plan does not provide funding for English, it provides funding for the vitality of Quebec's English-speaking community. That changes everything.
Nearly 30% of people mainly use English at work in Montreal. Meanwhile, the use of French as a main language has dropped by 13% in the communications sector and by 11% in the finance sector. In short, the vitality of the English language seems to be doing just fine.
Why are the Liberals investing in English when we keep reminding them that French is the language that is at risk?
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- Apr/28/23 12:04:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Agriculture. The Olymel meat-packing plan in Vallée‑Jonction, in my riding, which employs 1,000 workers, announced that it will be permanently closing its doors in December 2023.
This closure will have a major impact on the pork industry in both Quebec and Ontario. Fully 70% of the pork produced in Canada is exported. However, the minister has not commented on this at all since the announcement was made two weeks ago.
What will the minister do to help the workers and especially the farmers who will be directly affected by the closure of the processing plant?
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- Apr/28/23 12:04:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. As he knows, the minister is in Japan defending the interests of Canadian agriculture. He must be well aware of that, because he is the one who moved the motion to have the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food hear from the various stakeholders in the coming days. The Government of Quebec has committed to working with Olymel.
Obviously, Olymel made a business decision and has not yet contacted us about what the solution will be, but, of course, we are prepared to work with the industry to defend the interests of farmers and workers.
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- Apr/28/23 1:21:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Winnipeg North for his speech.
My colleague from Joliette mentioned, in a question posed a little earlier, that Revenu Québec had done a much better job than the CRA on tax evasion by recouping significant amounts, which was one of the arguments used by the Bloc Québécois to justify giving Quebec full taxation powers by implementing a single tax return.
I would like my colleague to comment on the idea that this bill will make it even easier for Quebec to recoup even more money hidden in tax havens by tax evaders, providing further justification for giving Quebec full authority over its tax returns.
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- Apr/28/23 1:22:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not think it is in Canada's best interest to have each province create its own collection agencies. We would have 10 or 12 different ones: Revenue Quebec, Revenue Manitoba, Revenue Alberta and so forth. I would be concerned.
Once it was provided the additional financial resources during the pandemic, the CRA demonstrated how successful it can be. There have been well over a thousand investigations. CRA is well equipped to ensure that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are well represented.
I am also concerned about those valuable CRA jobs in the province of Quebec. At the end of the day, people in Quebec and the rest of Canada are well served by the CRA. Once it is provided with the proper resources, it will be able to deal with a lot of the things we expect it to do. That is one of the reasons we funded it with just under $1 billion to do so.
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