Vaughan-Woodbridge MP helps shape finance policy

YorkRegion.com
Oct. 24, 2016
By Tim Kelly

As a member of Canada's parliamentary finance committee, Francesco Sorbara is used to being asked for money.

The Vaughan-Woodbridge Liberal MP, elected just over a year ago, has been touring the country listening to groups who want a slice of the hundreds of billions available in the upcoming budget. There's never enough to satisfy everyone but he has to lend a friendly ear along with his fellow all-party committee members.

The final call on all money matters of course, comes from his boss, finance minister Bill Morneau, who will deliver his fall economic statement next week and his second federal budget next spring. Sorbara said in a recent interview in his Vaughan office that he and the finance committee had heard from some 500 budget applicants.

"Everyone from the Canadian Labour Congress to the Canadian Taxpayers' Federation comes to us. The asks are varied in terms of magnitude and diversity. We have to make sure the economy is going in the right direction, how to best use our infrastructure spending, where we should be targeting our dollars, making sure our tax system is fair; the thing about the finance committee is you see everything," he said.

He provides a list of some of the things he feels the government has accomplished in the past year.

"The biggest issues I hear are that seniors are pleased we rolled back retirement from 67 to 65. For seniors that would have cost them $13,000 a year they would have lost in Guaranteed Income Supplement payments over two years," he said.

He's also proud the government brought in the Canada Child benefit which he said will take 300,000 children out of poverty and provide nine out of 10 families an average additional benefit of $2,300 per year.

A major issue that cropped up over the past year was tax avoidance and evasion, especially with the release of the Panama Papers which revealed companies and individuals were avoiding corporate taxes in Canada by incorporating companies in offshore countries.

"Our government has put an additional $440 million in the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to help it combat tax avoidance and tax evasion. We need to make sure Canadians have confidence and trust in our tax system and that everyone is paying their fair share and no one is subsidizing anyone else."