Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley for raising the fact that one of the larger offences in all of the last number of years of omnibus budget bills is buried in this omnibus bill. This complex piece of legislation should never be put in an omnibus bill.
I have previously mentioned to the House Peter Hogg, one of Canada’s leading constitutional experts, who warned the Minister of Finance that this bill would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I also want to draw the attention of the House to the opinion of Allison Christians, who is the H. Heward Stikeman chair in tax law at McGill, and Arthur Cockfield, a professor at Queen’s University. I want to put their opinion on the record:
| The proposed Implementation Act and the IGA do not enhance the reciprocal tax information exchange between the United States and Canada, nor do they create a workable regime for Canada to enhance its international tax enforcement efforts going forward. |
Further they state:
| Instead, the Implementation Act and the IGA raise a number of serious issues ranging from likely Charter violations to violations— |
The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bruce Stanton): We have run out of time. I know we have a 10-minute timeframe for questions and comments, but we need some time for other members.