OTTAWA — The NDP says it supports an OECD-brokered international deal to impose a global minimum tax rate and update tax rules for Big Tech companies and other multinational corporations, but the party won’t yet commit to voting in favour of the legislation that will be needed to enact the deal.

In an interview with The Logic Wednesday, NDP house leader Peter Julian urged the Liberal government to quickly adopt other measures his party has proposed to raise more revenue.

“We are very much in favour of having the web giants pay their fair share,” Julian said. “We believe the OECD measures are an important first step.” But he criticized the Liberals for not supporting the NDP’s proposals for new, dedicated taxes on wealthy individuals and companies whose profits during the COVID-19 pandemic exceeded expectations.

Under the OECD deal announced last Friday, 136 jurisdictions including Canada agreed to measures designed “to address the tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy.” One set of proposed new rules would impose an effective corporate-tax rate floor of 15 per cent for most large firms. The other provisions would allow governments to tax the largest multinational corporations if they do business in a country, even if they don’t have a physical presence there.

Targets of the changes include Silicon Valley tech giants; taxes drawn on the profits of Apple, Alphabet, Facebook and Microsoft are among those likely to be redistributed.

The governments backing the deal also agreed that “no newly enacted Digital Services Taxes or other relevant similar measures will be imposed on any company” until a new multilateral system takes effect or the end of 2023, whichever is sooner. While the Liberals had planned to introduce a domestic digital-services tax (DST) on Jan. 1, 2022, in the wake of the deal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland announced that Canada will delay its implementation, instead promising to “move ahead with legislation finalizing the enactment” of the global levy by next year. The domestic tax will take effect at the start of 2024 if the global deal has not yet come into force.

Most countries will need to pass legislation putting the global deal into force domestically, meaning the Liberals, who in last month’s election secured only enough seats for a minority government, will need the support of at least one other party in the House of Commons. With the Conservatives having said they oppose a global minimum tax, the NDP are the Liberals’ most likely partner.

However, Julian argued that under the proposed global system, large foreign technology companies “would pay even less” than if they were subject to a Canadian DST, citing estimates from Canadians for Tax Fairness, an advocacy non-profit. “The fact that what is being proposed internationally [would] compel less of a fair share than the domestic digital-services tax [is] one indication of why Canada has to act in Canada,” he said.

In the April federal budget, Finance Canada estimated the DST would generate $3.4 billion in new revenue over its first five fiscal years.

Freeland has repeatedly declined to answer The Logic’s questions about whether the federal government would receive more or less tax revenue under the OECD-led framework than its proposed DST. “We need to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts before we can get that specific,” she said in July. But she told reporters last week the international agreement “will be really good for Canada’s bottom line.” Julian said Finance Canada is failing to disclose any estimates “for political reasons.”

Julian said the NDP isn’t ready to commit to voting in favour of Liberal bills to enable the DST and OECD deal. “In principle, we’re supportive of those measures, but we need to see the legislation and scrutinize [it],” Julian said. “Often with this government, legislation falls short of [its] purported intention.”

Freeland is in Washington, D.C. this week for the G7 and G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meetings, which are expected to review last week’s international agreement.