Moreover, Mulcair wants to know how long Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has known about Love’s involvement in the scheme and the lawsuit launched by the family of former Canadian Prime Minister Arthur Meighen.
“This guy should have been gone immediately and the Conservatives now have to tell us how long they have known.”
Mulcair said the Conservatives and the Liberals go easy on wealthy friends who try to avoid taxes but average Canadians who don’t declare tips get hit.
“The Conservatives have no morality when it comes to making rich people pay their taxes. Whether it’s a rich company that hides its money in other jurisdictions the way Paul Martin used to do with his company or when you see rich people not only not paying their taxes and nobody is going after them but the government defends them individually.”
“What moral lesson is that giving to the average Canadian.”
Mulcair’s comments came after CBC revealed that Love, a Toronto tax lawyer, was named in a lawsuit that alleges he moved slightly more than $8 million from former prime minister Arthur Meighen’s trust through Bermuda, Barbados and Antigua in a bid to reduce Canadian taxes.
Earlier, Liberal Finance Critic Scott Brison called on the government to review its vetting process in the wake of the revelation.
Brison said he would like the House of Commons finance committee to take a closer look at Jim Love’s involvement in setting up the offshore tax scheme and whether he was ever asked about it before Finance Minister Jim Flaherty named him chairman of the mint and an advisor to the finance department.
“If you look at the spate of appointments that have gone bad for this government, it is unprecedented that one government has made so many questionable appointments. From Arthur Porter to Jim Love, this is a government that seems to have a very lax research process to vet potential appointments.”
NDP Revenue Critic Murray Rankin said he would like to see an independent investigation into the scheme set up by Love and determine whether it constituted tax evasion.
“Mr. Love is the chair of the Royal Canadian Mint, he is a tax lawyer who has according to the CBC report, been involved in an international tax avoidance scheme which seems to have saved over $1 million in taxes. It involves all of the things that we have been railing against and which the Conservatives tell us they are taking seriously – numbered companies, trusts, corporations in Antigua, Bermuda, Bahamas, two dozen transactions for the purpose, it would appear, to avoid paying Canadian taxes. This is wrong.”
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