Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to say first of all that there is so much in this omnibus budget bill that we disagree with. We've called it a monster budget bill because it has crammed so many changes into one bill. There are over 60 bills that are being changed, many of which—I think over 20—that were never identified initially in the budget earlier this year. We've been highly critical of this bill, and that's why we have been voting against it.
There are changes in here that would kill jobs and investment through changes to the SR and ED tax credit, changes that will harm research and development in this country. There are serious changes to the Navigable Waters Act that will seriously impact our environment, and we'll get to those changes. There are changes here to the Fisheries Act, some of which are attempting to correct changes that this government made this spring that were hastily done, and in fact they have to go back now and correct them before they've even begun implementing them.
My colleague from the Liberal Party has proposed a number of amendments. We've proposed some amendments. We've tried to propose substantive amendments on the issues that we are concerned about. We've had consultations with Canadians across the country, and we've tried to reflect in our amendments the issues we've heard about.
However, I have to say there are some amendments that my colleague has made that we have trouble supporting. Some we have supported, but we have been fighting on this committee to finish a study of tax havens because we believe, in an era when Canadians are counting every dollar, that it is the obligation of this government to try to close tax loopholes, and if wealthy individuals or companies are putting money away in tax havens that really ought to be taxed fairly here in Canada, that is something this committee should address and study, and the committee should recommend when these are changes that the government should seriously consider.
It is in this spirit that I have to say that although we disagree strongly with the whole omnibus budget bill process that this government has put forward and many of the specific measures in this bill, where there are specific tax loopholes that the government is attempting to close, we fail to understand why the Liberal Party would introduce amendments to block those changes. We really don't understand that.
As I said, we've taken a position against the whole omnibus bill process and we will be voting accordingly. We don't understand why there are—and it's not just this amendment we're voting on, but a whole serious of amendments that would basically leave wide-open tax loopholes. I don't think Canadians find that fair. They have to pay their taxes—why should some who are able to exploit these loopholes be able to not pay their fair share in taxes?
I just had to go on the record. There are many amendments that deal with this, and where we feel they're trying to pry open tax loopholes, we will vote against them.