Bill C-201 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons)

This enactment allows tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct from their taxable income any travel and accommodation expenses that they have incurred in order to secure and maintain employment in a construction activity at a job site that is located at least 80 kilometres away from their ordinary place of residence.

Income Tax Act

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to join the House today from Hamilton Centre in support of this bill at third reading. I extend my sincere congratulations to the hon. member for Essex. We had quite some time joking around about the fact that he got to be an honorary New Democrat while presenting this private member's bill, Bill C-241. I think he even promised to wear an orange tie, although I am not quite sure that I have seen that in the House, but I have done my best today.

I wanted to make sure that as New Democrats we get a chance to set the record straight today. This bill has been proposed five times since 2006. The then hon. member Chris Charlton for Hamilton Mountain introduced this bill in 2006, 2008 and 2013. In fact, she had introduced Bill C-201 in 2013, which was crushed by a Conservative majority. I will give the hon. member for Essex the benefit, because I know from his remarks that he was not elected in 2013. However, I will note that the Conservative leader, the hon. member for Carleton, voted against it.

We, as New Democrats, continued to fight alongside the building trades, and in 2021 this was introduced by my dear friend, the always honourable Scott Duvall from Hamilton Mountain, and of course myself. In 2021, one of my first orders of business, and a promise I made to our Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council and all of its affiliates, was that I would pick it up and run with it in Bill C-222.

As pointed out by the previous Liberal member, there is only a small difference between what the government has introduced and what this bill provides with respect to distance. Members may recall in the previous reading that this was an issue I brought up. It was clear that in our bill, Bill C-222, we had suggested that the 120-kilometre radius was too far. It would have excluded too many people, particularly those who had to commute through hours of traffic in the GTA. In our bill it was 80 kilometres. If the Parliamentary Budget Officer had run those numbers, he would have seen that more people could have taken advantage of the deduction in our proposal. One of my regrets is that it was not carried through during its time at committee.

I acknowledge and give credit where it is due to the organized labour of Ontario. These are the Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario, Canada's Building Trades Unions, the Hamilton—Brantford Building & Construction Trades Council, the people I worked with and the people we are all familiar with, such as the recently retired Pat Dillon here in Ontario. Throughout his entire 20-year career he worked on this. He was dogmatic across all parties that it was something that had to happen because of the general fairness imbued in the bill and the differences identified among the corporate, the Bay Street and the management classes of the country. They got to travel around the world and deduct all of that. That privilege is not extended by the CRA to those who actually build wealth and generate true value in this economy, which is the working class.

I want to make a correction, and will do so even perhaps to my own embarrassment, but it certainly needs to be said in the House. It has been said many times that MPs get to write off their travel. That is not true. An MP's travel is covered by our members' budgets, so it is a very different scenario. I hope that we would ensure that what is good enough for us would be good enough for the working class.

I call again for the same spirit from our new-found socialist Conservative friends who are looking to extend these rights and privileges to the working class. Keep that energy up when it comes to things like dental care and pharmacare. These are things that we, as members of Parliament, have the privilege of receiving and some of us for our entire lives. Let us be clear. There are members in the House who speak about work and working class issues in a completely abstract way, because they have never actually worked in the private sector. That is a fact.

While I do not know the history of my friend from Essex, I am grateful that in his trips to the airport he was able to engage in a dialectical materialism with the working class. It identified that the real-world conditions of the working class and the contradictions of the class considerations provide a general unfairness in how we treat our blue-collar workers compared to the white-collar management class in this country. A person, such as a real estate lawyer or a developer, can fly across the country and write all of that off. However, the worker who actually builds that wealth and who constructs the actual material does not get the same consideration. It is indeed one of the inherent contradictions of our tax code and our general economy.

To go further, to talk about the exploitation of the building trades workers, the hon. member for Essex brought up the notion of affordability in housing. This is an issue that comes up in my community when I am talking to folks about the issues of their housing costs and how far away their ability is, through their wages, to purchase the things they make. This is indeed a perversion of the capitalism and the impacts of capitalism in this country that divorces the working class from the end product of their labour. It is an alienation of the working class. It is an estrangement of labour.

In the example I used, the building a house metaphor, while the cost of building the house varies between provinces and because of factors like materials, currently the housing construction costs range between $120 to $250 per square foot. If we were to average this out, it would be about $185 per square foot or approximately $370,000 to build a 2,000 square foot home in Canada. That is twice as much, and sometimes three times as much, as the average market cost. StatsCan listed the average Canadian house price in 2022 at approximately $704,000.

The average salary I could find of a union carpenter is about $70,000. That means it is 10 times as much, or 10 years' worth of work, for the person who builds the house to be able to purchase the house. The surplus value of their labour goes to people who have never swung a hammer in their entire lives. It goes to the banking class, the Bay Street class, the developer class and those who go to Doug Ford's family weddings and pay to increase their access to construction within provinces like Ontario. The money and the obscene profits that are made never make their way to the working class of this country.

It is the ultra-elite and the well-connected, those who have political ties, those who would seek to keep wages low and recall the Bank of Canada calling to keep the wages of workers low while the costs continue to run amok. It is shareholders, private investors in the investing class in this country, who are the ones taking the surplus value of workers' wages. It is not because workers are fighting for higher wages.

Under this economic system of private ownership, society only has two classes. These are the property class, or those who have access to capital, and everybody else. The workers are suffering from not only impoverishment but also from exploitation and estrangement from their work. That is why this very meagre private member's bill, Bill C-241, is literally the least we can do in the House to acknowledge that there is a general unfairness in our tax system.

I hope the hon. members from the Conservative Party, who crushed this bill some 10 years ago, who now have found their way in supporting this private member's bill, will keep that same energy up and understand it is the working class of this country who creates the value. That is who we should be prioritizing in the policies of the House.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I feel the need to begin my comments by recapitulating the words of the hon. member for Essex, who shared that he would happily call himself a New Democrat to get this PMB passed, if even just for a day.

I am glad it is in the Hansard. As I shared in my question to the hon. member for Essex, the New Democratic Party has been in the Hansard on this very bill five times since 2006. I am going to take a moment to recapitulate. The first was in 2006, Bill C-390, under the always hon. Chris Charlton, and then again in 2008 as Bill C-227, introduced by the hon. Chris Charlton, and in 2013, as Bill C-201, again by Chris Charlton. When Chris Charlton retired, she handed it over to a working class hero from Hamilton, the always hon. Scott Duvall, who introduced this same bill in 2021 as Bill C-275.

I have the honour, being from Hamilton, to continue the working class values of our city and our party by introducing Bill C-222. The hon. member for Essex was in fine form, using his newly found New Democratic talking points to sell this very bill in the House. I give the hon. member for Essex the benefit of the doubt, because the hon. member for Essex was not elected in 2013 when this bill was last introduced under Bill C-201, but when it was up for vote in second reading, it was the Conservative Party with a majority that crushed this bill.

We have had 15 years of work on this bill. We have had six years where the working class people of this country could have benefited from these types of tax considerations. The hon. member is quite right when he says he wants for working class people what we have in the House as MPs when it comes to writing off some of our travel expenses. I would go one step further, and I would suggest that all MPs in the House ought to carry the same spirit by wanting for others what we ourselves have in here when it comes to dental care and pharmacare and pensions.

Here we are. The challenge we have is that the newly found New Democrat, in his New Democratic talking points, showed the disconnect that he has with the building trades because the example he gave in his answer relating to the distance, using his county of Essex, suggesting that an hour and a half travel is about 120 kilometres, tells us that he has never spoken to skilled tradespeople in southern Ontario. If he had, he would know that people from Hamilton could sit in traffic for three hours just on their way to Toronto, which is 60 kilometres away.

He is quite right that skilled tradespeople have fought for this over decades. Let us be clear. He was right when he says this is a bipartisan and non-partisan issue. This is not a win for the Conservatives who found their new working class values under their previous leader. I will remind them, though, that their previous leader from Durham, in 2014, did vote against this, as did their interim leader, as did the hon. member for Carleton. All of them voted against this. Why now?

I would put to the House that it is because the Conservative Party uses working class issues and working class people in the same way that one would use a pair of old dirty sneakers. They only bring them out when it time to cut the grass, to pretend that the grass is green on the other side, when it is clear that this bill comes up short by lengthening that distance and excluding so many people from areas like my city and Hamilton Centre.

I am going to take my time, but I am going to give credit where credit is due, which is in the organized labour of the Ontario building trades council, of the Canada's Building Trades Unions, of the Hamilton-Brantford building trades council, the people I work with, people like Pat Dillon, who for his entire career worked on this, for 20 years, and in fact was successful under their previous leader to have this implemented into darn near all the platforms.

Following in the spirit of the New Democratic Party, we saw willingness from the government side to finally give lip service to this. Why it failed to act on it until now is beyond me, but in the spirit of moving things forward to improve the material conditions of working-class people in this country, I am happy we are here. Our Parliament works better when we work together for working-class people.

To Pat Dillon, and Pat's retirement, I suspect that many members from all parties showed up to honour Pat in that moment. Let today be his victory. Let future votes on this be his victory, when hopefully we get to a place where this bill covers all the aspects that it needs to cover. Let this be the victory of Mark Ellerker, from the Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council, who I have had the privilege of working with since my time as a city councillor. He has always fought with the building trades, not just for organized labour but for unorganized labour too, because the notion that what is good for the manager or the salesperson in tax considerations absolutely must be a tax fairness question that is applied to all working-class people, whether it is for their travel expenses or their tools, which was a very appropriate point brought up by members on the government side. I encourage the government's side to bring these types of real considerations for working-class people into their legislation, into their throne speeches and, most importantly, into their budget.

Lastly, I want to once again thank my good friend, Stuart McLellan, from IBEW Local 105. We would have long conversations about the ability for workers to travel where they do not have to do that calculus. The truth is that not all collective agreements have within them travel expenses. The ones that do not are limited by them. They have to go out of pocket.

Let us be clear about one thing. It is not MPs, it is not entrepreneurs, it is not CEOs or big developers who create value in this country. Value in this economy is only built by working-class people. It is taken by the ultrawealthy. In this respect, when we talk about those members who are being considered in this space, and they talk about how 120 kilometres might look like an hour and a half to them, those members should sit in traffic from Hamilton to Toronto, or from Montreal to anywhere, for that matter. They should know that travel time is not just a tax expense that can be written off. It is time away from family. It is a sacrifice that has to be made as a worker in order to put food on the table and to pay the rent.

Let us get this bill right for Pat. Let us get this bill right for Mark and Stuart, and for all of the incredible working-class people across this country who truly put value in this economy and are truly building this country.

With that, to my temporary and honorary member of the New Democratic Party, I congratulate him on his private member's bill and I am happy to stand and see that be reflected in the Hansard today.

[Christopher Smillie, Senior Advisor, Government Relations and Public Affairs, Canada's Building Trades Unions]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Canada's Building Trades Unions represent close to 500,000 members in Canada and more than three million in the U.S. We represent people who go to work every day on job sites large and small in the energy sector, and commercial and residential sectors. We're the largest private trainer on the continent and we invest more than a quarter billion dollars a year in Canada in training infrastructure. So we know jobs. We're paid by our members to find jobs every week. If we don't find them a job, we're not doing our job.

Jobs are essentially a private sector responsibility, right? My submission today is that the federal government can easily assist with mobility measures in the Canadian labour market that would assist people who wouldn't otherwise go to where the work is and get them when the employers need them. This can be done through tax credits or a restructure of the employment insurance benefits system and do it all rather cheaply compared to other government spending. My submission is that a mobility assistance measure would ease the strained temporary foreign worker program by transitioning Canadians to labour markets where their talents are required. Even if it's a short duration it helps the economy and the country. A mobility measure would encourage people to get off employment insurance and start working again: a noble cause on both fronts.

All construction work is temporary. All construction work is transitory. Skilled tradespeople are dispatched wherever the work may be. The lucky ones get travel assistance from either the construction employer or the large client. You heard from Janet from CAPP. Sometimes her members pay to fly back and forth to their job sites. The existing permanent relocation tax credit available through the Income Tax Act doesn't make sense or apply to temporary workers who work in transitory industries. No one is moving their family and home for a temporary six-week job on a large apartment building being built in Saskatoon or Hamilton when your kids, wife, and home are in Welland, Barrie, Tuktoyaktuk, or elsewhere.

Canada needs a change in incentive policy for in-demand occupations when relocating for temporary work. lt doesn't matter to industry, it doesn't matter to Janet, or it doesn't matter to me if it's a tax credit or an El grant: industry is united. Parliament had a chance to do something late last fall with Bill C-201. However, the bill was handily defeated because of partisanship. Mobility and getting a job is a non-partisan issue to Canadians. The Government of Canada introducing a mobility assistance policy for in-demand workers is not a partisan act. The government helping people temporarily relocate for work is not a partisan exercise. The government's expense getting them there today means tax revenues tomorrow from the worker, the capital asset, and the company doing the work.

The pilot I suggest in my written submission to the committee starts small; $4 million in forgone tax revenue. lt returns $12 million in income tax paid by individuals alone. Pick a few occupations most in need and choose a few major projects to determine eligibility in the pilot. Federal budgets are about wise spending choices and this modest pilot certainly falls into the frugal category when you look at the breadth of public program spending in Canada. For example Public Works indicates the various departments in Ottawa spent about the same amount on public polling in 2013 as this request would be.

This measure could also help Canadians get the training they need in a different market where there is work and an employer willing to tap into the Canada job grant. Use the mobility measure to get to where the training is for the job you're about to start. The job grant is dependent on an employer willing to hire you. Markets with hot employment markets will require more people to be trained. There is a natural link here. The Canada job grant, despite the noise, is the single most important change to the training landscape in two decades.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I wonder, Mr. Myers, if you have any thoughts about either the apprenticeship program or labour mobility and Bill C-201 in particular.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm happy to be able to ask another round of questions. I want to follow up. I think Mr. Larson was the only person who spoke in his presentation about the skill shortage, but it's certainly come up since then in conversation. It's a vexing problem for us right now, because we have high unemployment in some parts of the country and we have labour shortages in other parts of the country, particularly in Alberta in the oil sands, and we've certainly spent a bunch of time at the human resources committee talking about that unique circumstance.

One of the issues, of course, relates to labour mobility, which is a bit of a fix to that situation. I had put a bill before Parliament, C-201, which was supported by the building trades, and I'm sure, Ms. Annesley, your organization supported it as well, and many contractors did. It would have allowed building and construction trades to write off their travel and accommodation expenses if they worked more than 80 kilometres away from home.

I wonder if I could ask all of you if you support that kind of initiative as part of the solution. I'm not at all suggesting that it's the ultimate fix, but I would very much like to have your views on record on that.

Ms. Annesley, maybe we could start with you.

[The Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-201 under private members' business.

The House resumed from January 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-201, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition in support of a bill introduced by the member for Hamilton Mountain. Bill C-201 would allow tradespeople and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes when they secure and maintain employment at a construction site more than 80 kilometres from their homes.

Taxation

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition about the enactment of Bill C-201. The member for Hamilton Mountain has introduced Bill C-201, which would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes, so they can secure and maintain employment at construction sites that are more than 80 kilometres from their homes. This is signed by many petitioners from my riding and local ridings, who are all in favour of this.

Income Tax Act

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had hoped to be able to rise in the chamber tonight to thank my colleagues from all sides of the House for putting partisanship aside and doing the right thing; the right thing for Canada's building and construction trades, for employers who cannot find enough skilled workers to meet their job requirements, for regional economies and for the taxpayers of this country. We could have achieved all of that simply by supporting Bill C-201, an act that would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct from their taxable income any travel and accommodation expenses they incur to secure and maintain employment in a construction activity at a job site located at least 80 kilometres away from their ordinary place of residence.

However, it is clear from the Conservative members' comments in this debate that they are once again going to allow partisanship to stand in the way of good public policy. In fact, the member for Yukon basically said as much when he stated essentially that I should not have had the audacity to introduce this bill because, in his view, it should have been introduced by the Conservatives as part of their budget process. I would have been happy for that to happen. In fact, ever since I first introduced this bill in 2006, I have repeatedly been in touch with the government, including the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, to indicate that I would happily withdraw my bill if the government wanted to introduce it as a Conservative budget measure. However, eight years later, the building trades have still only received lip service instead of action and, frankly, they deserve better. What they are getting from the current government is the same run-around that they got from previous Liberal and Conservative governments for the last 35 years. It is a disgrace. The reasons being articulated by members on the government side just do not hold water. I only have five minutes to participate in tonight's debate, but thankfully all of the arguments are easy to rebut.

The first argument put forward by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue was that the bill would be very costly and that the cost would be significant to our economy at this time. However, just a few minutes later he went on to take credit for “Canada's strong economic performance”. Well, which is it? Did the Conservatives fail and the economy is still fragile? Or is the economy robust and the Conservatives are simply refusing to act? Either way, the government is failing Canada's building and construction trades.

The next argument put forth by government MPs is that the Canada jobs grant is a better solution than my bill for the skilled labour shortage, which has been identified by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce as the number one issue facing its membership. However, oops, the Canada jobs grant does not actually exist yet and, given the provinces' rejection of the federal approach on this file, it may in fact never get off the ground. However, that of course has not stopped the government from already spending taxpayer dollars on advertising this non-existent program.

To add insult to injury, the Conservative talking points then suggest that my bill would provide tax relief for “personal expenses that reflect lifestyle decisions”. That argument is buttressed by examples of imaginary workers who would use my bill to scam the government by going to the cottage so they could claim to be more than 80 kilometres away from a job site that in reality is close to their primary residence. That argument is so absurd that I do not even know where to begin, but suffice it to say that tax credits only return a percentage of the actual money spent on travel, so no one is going to come out ahead financially under this bizarrely concocted Conservative scenario. It would be cheaper for them to live at home. I do not think I will be taking any lessons on tax evasion from a government that has done nothing to recover the $5 billion to $7.8 billion in Canadian tax revenue that is lost annually to tax havens around the world.

The last argument put forth by the government is that the bill would “raise equity concerns”, meaning that by singling out tradespersons my bill would not go far enough in offering the same benefits to other workers. On that point, we can agree, and I would be more than happy to entertain amendments in committee to broaden the coverage of my bill. I had specifically kept the focus narrow to keep the bill revenue-neutral and to alleviate the cost concerns that I knew would be at the root of the government's objections. However, by all means let us include others; the members of ACTRA, for one, would be delighted. However, the only way to do that is to actually vote in favour of my bill at second reading, so it will end up in committee where amendments could be made. That is where the rubber would hit the road.

I know the Conservatives are not sincere in wanting to improve the bill. They have their marching orders. Even those members like the MPs for Brant and Mississauga—Streetsville and the Minister of Labour, who spoke out in favour of my bill at the HUMA committee, now appear to be backtracking. I cannot believe they would just allow themselves to be muzzled by the PMO. Nor do I want to believe they are the kind of politicians who say one thing to one audience and something else to a different crowd. I want to believe they are more principled than that.

So today in these final few seconds of second-reading debate, I want to speak directly to them and say to stand up for what they believe in, that they know this bill is the right thing to do; to talk to their colleagues and tell them that it is never wrong to fight for what is right.

On February 5 when this bill comes to a vote, let us make history. Let us pass this initiative that helps the very men and women who have literally built our country. Canada's building and construction trades deserve nothing less.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act , would in essence allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct from their taxable income any travel and accommodation expenses that they have incurred in order to secure and maintain employment in a construction activity at a job site that is located at least 80 kilometres away from their ordinary residence.

Let me first say that our government encourages new ways and ideas to improve Canada's tax system. Our government has a strong record of tax fairness and tax relief. We work diligently to treat each tax dollar we receive responsibly. Therefore, we are always open to ways that can keep money where it belongs, in the pockets of hard-working Canadians.

We realize that Bill C-201 has good intentions, such as providing tax relief for tradespersons and indentured apprentices who have to travel a long distance to work. We thank the member for her concern for these hard-working Canadians, but unfortunately the bill itself has too many problems for the government to support it.

Like speakers before me have mentioned when the bill was first debated, the bill contains flaws that could create opportunities for tax planning. It is a piece of legislation that could pose a very significant cost to taxpayers. Further, the bill is redundant, considering that our government already has thoughtful and practical measures to support apprenticeships and tradespersons.

Allow me to elaborate on that point. In response to growing shortages of skilled labour in some parts of our country, our government already provides a number of measures to support apprentices and tradespersons who are an integral part of our economy. Specifically, the government has introduced a number of measures to encourage businesses to hire apprentices and Canadians to pursue careers in the trades.

Let me share what we have done. Budget 2006 introduced the apprenticeship job creation tax credit which provides eligible employers a tax credit equal to 10% of the wages paid to qualifying apprentices in the first two years of their contract, up to $2,000 per apprentice per year. Budget 2006 also introduced the apprenticeship incentive grant, which provides $1,000 per year to apprentices upon completion of each of the first two years of an apprenticeship program in the red seal trades. Also, budget 2009 introduced the apprenticeship completion grant, which provides $2,000 to apprentices upon completion of their certification in red seal trades.

We have consistently supported tradespersons in Canada. Budget 2006 also introduced an annual deduction of up to $500, in 2013, for tradespersons for the cost of new tools in excess of $1,117 that they must acquire as a condition of employment. Budget 2006 also increased to $500 from $200 the limit on the cost of tools eligible for the 100% capital cost deduction which may be claimed by self-employed tradespersons and businesses. Our government has also extended the fees eligible for the tuition tax credit to include those from examinations required to be certified as a tradesperson in Canada.

It does not stop there. In addition to these tax measures and grants, our government, through economic action plan 2013, proposed new measures to support the use of apprentices in three key areas. The first is changing the government's approach to procurement by introducing measures to support the use of apprentices in federal construction and maintenance contracts. Second is ensuring that funds transferred to provinces and territories through the investment in affordable housing support the use of apprentices. Third, we are encouraging provinces, territories and municipalities to support the use of apprentices in infrastructure projects receiving federal funding as part of the new building Canada plan for infrastructure.

To further reduce barriers to accreditation in the skilled trades, economic action plan 2013 announced the government's intention to reallocate $4 million over three years to work with provinces and territories to harmonize requirements for apprentices, as well as examining the use of practical tests as a means of assessment in targeted skilled trades.

Economic action plan 2013 was a large commitment by our government to support the skilled trades and encourage growth in these very important industries. Unfortunately, the member opposite who put forward Bill C-201 voted against every one of these measures. Therefore, it is surprising to see her claim full support for tradespeople across the country.

Having established how our government has been, and continues to be, proactive when it comes to providing practical support for apprentices and tradespeople, I would like to discuss the important policy concerns that the bill raises. To put it bluntly, as drafted, Bill C-201 would make it difficult to ensure that tax relief is not provided in respect of personal expenses reflecting lifestyle decisions. For example, expenses incurred by eligible individuals who choose to live more than 80 kilometres away from the workplace for personal reasons would qualify for the tax relief. Furthermore, the open-ended nature of the proposed deduction would make it vulnerable to unfair tax planning. For example, individuals could arrange their affairs to claim a recreational property, such as a cottage more than 80 kilometres away from work, as their principal residence and deduct the cost of maintaining their urban residence as an expense required to secure and maintain employment. Legislating tax credits that are open to abuse is not how we create a fair tax system for all Canadians.

Finally, implementing Bill C-201 would cost taxpayers up to $60 million. Since our government already has significant measures in place to provide tax relief to tradespeople, we do not see any added benefit to forgoing more tax revenue for a measure that may not prove to be effective, and a measure that could subsidize personal choices, for that matter.

We take pride in the fact that under our government the overall federal tax burden is the lowest it has been in 50 years. In total, our government has introduced more than 160 tax-relief measures since 2006, reducing taxes in every way that the Government of Canada collects them. These are real measures that are helping all Canadians across the country: tradespeople, apprentices, families, seniors, and the list goes on. Canadians at all income levels are benefiting from the personal income tax relief introduced by the government, with low- and middle-income Canadians receiving proportionately greater relief. The average family of four is saving over $3,200 per year in taxes, and more than one million low-income Canadians have been removed from the tax rolls.

This is great news, and more work must be done. However, we must be cautious of proposals that would unnecessarily burden the work our government is doing to balance the budget. Our government is focused on the drivers of growth and job creation: innovation, investment, education, skills, and communities, underpinned by our ongoing commitment to keep taxes low, and returning to a balanced budget.

Therefore, it is our position that Canadians do not need Bill C-201. It contains too many flaws. It costs too much, and it is redundant, considering the policies we currently have in place to help not only tradespeople, but all working Canadians as well. With that, I encourage my fellow members to vote against the bill.

[Claude Gravelle, NDP, Nickel Belt, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to this bill amending the Income Tax Act to deal with travel and accommodation deductions for tradespersons.

It is no surprise that this legislation comes from my colleague and friend, the member for Hamilton Mountain. Nickel Belt and Hamilton have much in common besides their good sense in electing New Democrats to the House of Commons.

My colleague has been tireless in her support and advocacy for working men and women. Like her, I understand the extraordinary contributions made by tradespeople for our economy and our communities. People in Hamilton and Nickel Belt get this.

Like her, I know the extraordinary contributions unions make in the fight for justice, fair wages, pension protection of workers, and so much more. Examples are the Edgar Burton food drive in Sudbury, led by local 6500 USW, and the building of the cancer treatment centre in Sudbury, which was driven by all union members in Sudbury and Nickel Belt.

Unlike the government opposite, we on this side respect the union movement and the role unions play in building our communities and our country. The Conservatives proved last night, by supporting Bill C-525, how they feel about unions.

This is a reasonable proposal before the House today. It would allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes so that they could secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their homes.

I worked for a mining company for 34 years as a tradesman. I know the importance of the trades and the need, from time to time, for those skilled labourers to travel great distances to projects in other parts of the province or country.

Sitting these past two years on the natural resources committee, I understand the demand for skills in these major oil and mining projects and the likelihood of our workers travelling great distances to secure these jobs. This is an issue that is going to become increasingly important in our country.

This bill will help our working people and their families. The Canadian building and construction trades have been asking for this legislation for over 30 years. They got a lot of words from successive Liberal and Conservative governments, but no action.

Let us think about taking this reasonable small step in helping these tradespeople and our economy.

Construction workers cannot claim their travel or accommodation expenses when they accept jobs in other parts of the province or country. Building and trades officials report that the average expenses to relocate can be about $3,500. Some cannot afford to pay those expenses knowing that they cannot get a tax credit for them.

The member for Hamilton Mountain has done her homework on making this a win-win situation for everyone. It would solve the challenges in our regions where one area suffers from high unemployment while another suffers from temporary skilled labour shortages. Let us help the skilled workers get to where they need to be.

This legislation is even revenue neutral, given the savings that would happen in employment insurance benefits. The government has trouble figuring this out.

I have a response to a petition I submitted last month that was in favour of Bill C-201. The government calls this bill costly and flawed. The government insults workers, claiming that this tax relief could be open to much abuse, with moves done for lifestyle decisions rather than for work.

Any tax credit is, of course, open to abuse and requires safeguards and monitoring, which the Canada Revenue Agency is supposed to provide. It is not that difficult to confirm that a move has been made to take a skilled job that has not been filled.

The government response also alleges that certain individuals might receive a windfall gain and would have incurred ineligible travel and accommodation expenses in any case. I do not know who they were thinking about when they made these comments. It was probably Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau, Harb, and Lavigne. These people I named are not tradesmen. They are professional fraudsters. They are senators.

It is not difficult to make clear what an eligible expense is and who qualifies.

The CRA is also there to investigate any double-dipping.

This is also a win-win for the employers, giving them access to much larger pools of qualified workers. We need to act when we look at this country's demographics, including the baby boom generation, the numbers to retire in the next 10 years, and the statistics on shortage of skilled workers.

This bill has been introduced in every parliamentary session since 2006. It was part of the NDP's election platforms in 2008 and 2011. What we want is simple. The bill would allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their home.

These mobile workers across Canada continue to have to worry about maintaining a residence and their family, while spending their own money to travel in order to find work. The tax credit would cover the cost of travel, meals and accommodation and reduce the amounts paid by employers for the same things. The 2008 budget offered a similar break to truck drivers in order to reduce problems associated with mobility in that industry.

I remember what the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department director, Robert Blakely, said at the 2012 pre-budget consultations:

We have spaces for nearly 2,500 people to enter the construction industry in the next five years, and another 163,000 people in the five years after that. It's an industry that is going to change. If we have trained people all across the country, we need to be able to move them.

There are an estimated 1.6 million construction workers in Canada. An estimated 10% of them travel each year. This legislation is even revenue neutral, given the savings that would happen in employment insurance payments.

The government has trouble figuring this out. The government needs to do the real math, not the nonsense of estimating the cost of the bill at $60 million per year.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to speak on Bill C-201. It is a well-intentioned bill, but there are some serious flaws.

The economy is and still remains fragile. Simply put, now is not the time to engage in an estimated $60 million per year of reckless and duplicate spending.

Our government will continue to identify efficient ways of supporting our apprentices and tradespeople while creating jobs and economic growth. To put it bluntly, Bill C-201 does the exact opposite of this. It is a costly and flawed piece of legislation that could expose Canada's tax system to a high likelihood of abuse.

Specifically, it would create new costly tax loopholes that would be vulnerable to unfair tax planning, as the deduction is drafted in an open-ended manner. It would give workers in one field an unfair advantage, potentially distorting the labour market. It would make it difficult to ensure that tax relief is not provided for personal expenses, solely reflecting lifestyle decisions. It would result in certain individuals receiving a windfall gain for those individuals who would have incurred eligible travel and accommodation expenses in any case. Also, it would cost in excess of $60 million per year. These are clear and plain reasons why our government cannot support such a bill.

Rather than advance the flawed policy of the NDP bill, our Conservative government has introduced a number of measures that actually support tradespersons, encourage businesses to hire apprentices and encourage Canadians to pursue careers in the trades.

In 2006, members will remember that our government introduced the apprenticeship job creation tax credit which provides eligible employers with a tax credit equal to 10% of the wages paid to qualifying apprentices in the first two years of their contract, or up to $2,000 per apprentice per year.

Also back in 2006, our government introduced in the budget the apprenticeship incentive grant which provides $1,000 per year to apprentices upon completion of each of the first two years of an apprenticeship program in the red seal trade. Then, in budget 2009, our government introduced the apprenticeship completion grant which provides $2,000 to apprentices upon the completion of their certification in a red seal trade.

Let us not forget that it was our government that introduced, in 2014, an annual deduction of up to $500 for tradespersons for the cost of new tools in excess of $1,127 that they must acquire as a condition of employment. Budget 2006 also increased to $500 from $200 the limit on the cost of tools eligible for the 100% capital cost deduction which may be claimed by self-employed tradespersons and businesses.

In addition, there are a number of existing measures under the Income Tax Act for employees, including tradespersons, who travel or relocate for employment.

First, the moving expense deduction recognizes costs incurred by workers who move their ordinary place of residence at least 40 kilometres closer to their place of business or employment in order to pursue employment opportunities. Eligible costs are limited to the amount of income earned at the new location for the year.

Second, the special and remote work sites tax exemption allows employers to provide board and lodging expenses to employees on a tax-free basis. This exemption is limited to benefits paid by the employers on behalf of the employees, which ensures that eligible expenses are incurred for employment purposes.

Third, the travel expenses deduction allows employees who are ordinarily required to carry out the duties of employment away from the employers' place of business or in a different location to deduct travel expenses incurred, including 50% of meal expenses where they are required by the employer to pay their own expenses.

Fourth, similar to the travel expenses deduction for employees, self-employed individuals may deduct reasonable expenses incurred in connection with the generation of income from a business, including travel expenses, for example, lodging, and 50% of meal costs, while they are away from home.

Fifth, the northern residents deduction provides tax relief to individuals in northern and isolated communities to assist in attracting skilled labour to these communities.

Finally, the Canada employment credit, the CEC, introduced by the government in budget 2006 recognizes work-related expenses in a general way. In 2014, the CEC provides a tax credit on employment income up to $1,127.

As hon. members can see, our government recognizes the importance of the skilled trades to Canada's economy. We continue through our economic action plan to support economic growth and job creation, which includes a number of initiatives that directly support the development of a skilled, mobile and inclusive workforce within an efficient labour market.

Economic action plan 2013 proposes new measures to support the use of apprenticeships in four key ways: supporting the use of apprentices in federal construction and maintenance contracts; ensuring the funds transferred to provinces and territories through the investment in affordable housing support the use of apprentices; encouraging provinces, territories and municipalities to support the use of apprentices in infrastructure projects receiving federal funding as part of the new building Canada plan for infrastructure; and providing $4 million to work with provinces and territories to harmonize requirements for apprentices.

This kind of support for skills training is crucial to Canada's long-term growth, which is why our Conservative government is committed to maintaining this strong momentum. What the opposition does not understand is that in order to sustain this momentum more needs to be done than just creating training opportunities in high demand areas. It also requires creating the overall conditions for economic success that create high demand in the first place. It is for this reason Canada's economic action plan is a low-tax plan that will eliminate the deficit in 2015, reduce red tape and continue to promote free trade and innovation.

The results of our efforts speak for themselves. Since the depths of the global economic recession, the worst since the Great Depression, Canada's economy has created over one million net new jobs. These are overwhelmingly full-time, well-paying jobs in the private sector. I am proud to say that this is the strongest growth record among G7 countries, and others are noticing.

We are garnering international attention with Bloomberg recently declaring that Canada was the second best country in which to do business, just behind Hong Kong. Both the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development have recognized the benefits of our plan. They expect Canada to be among the strongest growing economies in the G7 over the next few years.

Our government remains focused on the drivers of growth and job creation: innovation, investment, education, skills and communities. These are underpinned by our ongoing commitment to keeping taxes low and returning a balanced budget in 2015. Unfortunately, bills such as Bill C-201 would do nothing to strengthen Canada's economy. It contains too many flaws, would cost too much, and it fails to take into account the effective policies we currently have in place to help not only tradespersons but all hard-working Canadians.

Given the many shortcomings in the proposal before us today, I encourage my fellow members to vote against this legislation.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to such an important issue for tradespeople across the country.

The bill introduced by the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain would allow skilled workers to deduct from their taxable income travel and accommodation expenses. It would also allow them to maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their home.

This is a much-needed bill. Tradespeople are the engine of our economy. Construction is the biggest private sector industry in the country. It boasts 17,000 companies and employs a million Canadians. It creates more than 12% of our gross domestic product.

Skilled tradespeople include heavy equipment operators, electricians, welders, carpenters and so on. These workers are essential on construction sites. It is impossible to do the work without them.

However, the trades are facing significant challenges, including a shortage of workers and workforce mobility issues.

The Conference Board of Canada estimates that Canada will need at least a million more skilled tradespeople by 2020. In Quebec alone, more than 730,000 professional and technical jobs will open up in the coming year alone. Some of the most sought after workers include industrial mechanics, welders and industrial management supervisors.

The construction industry estimates that it will need an additional 252,000 workers.

These trades require solid math skills, creativity and technological know-how. The pay is good. Skilled professionals earn 3.1% more than the average Canadian.

However, there is a recurring issue and that is workforce mobility. I am not talking about interprovincial mobility, just regional mobility. The placement of work sites in Canada is based on need. In construction, mining and infrastructure, major work sites are often in regions that are far from major cities.

Workers who want jobs far from home have to pay for their own travel and accommodations while still paying for their permanent residences. Those costs eat up a significant portion of their earnings and are not deductible under the Income Tax Act. That makes working far from home a less attractive proposition, not to mention that these people are also away from their families.

According to the building and construction trades department of the AFL-CIO, mobile workers spend an average of $3,500 of their personal savings to relocate temporarily.

While some regions of the country are experiencing high unemployment, others are suffering from a labour shortage. The bill introduced by the member for Hamilton Mountain offers a two-fold solution to the problem. Workers working at job sites at least 80 kilometres away from home would not have to take a financial hit. This solution is needed all the more because of the Conservatives' employment insurance reform, which forces workers to accept jobs within 100 kilometres of home.

In addition, Bill C-201 would boost government revenues because the cost of these tax credits will be outweighed by the employment insurance savings this bill will generate.

We also have to consider employers. They will have access to a larger pool of skilled workers, and Canadians will have access to jobs. Employers will no longer have to resort to temporary foreign workers.

Tradespeople have been waiting for a solution to this problem for a long time. The construction trades have actually been asking for this law for the past 30 years. The Conservatives and the Liberals have done absolutely nothing. The NDP has put forward a real solution.

I would like to congratulate my colleague from Hamilton Mountain because she has been fighting for this for years. In 2006, she introduced Bill C-390 and in 2008, Bill C-227. Now she is at it again with Bill C-201.

If the members of this House really want to support tradespeople, they must support this bill. It is time to pass this bill.

This bill will enable mobile workers across Canada to maintain their residences while relocating to get work. The tax credit would cover travel, meals and accommodation reduce amounts paid by employers for those purposes.

The 2008 budget provided this kind of tax relief to truckers as a way to minimize mobility issues in that sector. Everyone in the industry agrees. This bill will really help workers relocate to job sites.

According to the president of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Local 67, Geoff Roman, we have become too reliant on skilled workers to foot the bill when the country faces a labour shortage.

Robert Blakely, Director of the Canadian Affairs Building and Construction Trades Department agrees. He said:

The baby boomer generation, which no one expected was ever going to retire, is going to retire. We have spaces for nearly 2,500 people to enter the construction industry in the next five years, and another 163,000 people in the five years after that...If we have trained people all across the country, we need to be able to move them.

In Quebec, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 568, strongly supports the bill. Financial secretary Laurent Talbot stated:

The math is simple. More tradespeople working equals a lower unemployment rate.

It is true. There are roughly 1.6 million construction workers in the country and 10% of them move every year. At an average cost of $3,500 per worker per year, a 15% tax credit would cost the government $525 per worker per year, for a total cost of $84 million a year. For the same number of tradespeople receiving on average $393 in EI benefits a week for an unemployment period of four weeks, the government would pay $251 million in EI benefits a year, or nearly two and a half times more than under the bill, if it were passed.

The tax credit proposed in Bill C-201 would translate into a net savings of $167 million a year. That is not insignificant. This solution has been advocated by a number of experts. The Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities made two similar recommendations in 2008 as part of a study on employability.

Last year, the committee addressed the issue of labour shortages again and made the following recommendation:

Recommendation 30.

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada study the anticipated cost of introducing new fiscal measures that would help people who find jobs far away from where they live, for example a tax credit for travel and lodging if a person must work more than 80 kilometres from his or her residence, and that it study the potential impact of such measures on labour mobility and labour shortages.

After eight Conservative budgets, there still is no measure to correct this problem, which this government does not seem to take very seriously. Conservative members have said they support labour mobility, which is inconsistent. This is true of the member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca and the member for Prince Albert. Liberal members should also support this bill, given that it affects the entire country and there are construction workers in all ridings.

I hope that the bill introduced by my colleague from Hamilton Mountain, Bill C-201, passes. Tradespersons need to be supported across Canada, and they need to be treated with respect, like all workers in Canada.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-201, which would provide skilled trades workers with a tax deduction for certain work-related travel and accommodations.

I will be supporting this bill at second reading, so that it can move forward and be examined more thoroughly by the House of Commons finance committee.

Bill C-201 would help skilled tradespeople with the costs of travelling to work. It might help address some of the regional skills shortages that exist in Canada. This is an important issue, with a thriving construction industry being a vital source of good, well-paying, middle-class jobs. It is important that we do what we can to support these workers and their families.

Large parts of the construction industry are involved in short- to medium-term projects, and skilled tradespeople are often required to travel or temporarily relocate for work. In my part of the country and throughout Atlantic Canada we have a lot of workers and tradespeople who travel to other parts of the country to work for periods of time and then return to their families and make money in the meantime, which helps pay their mortgage, their family costs, and expenses in their homes in places like Hants County and Kings County of Nova Scotia. However, among construction workers, the cost of relocating is cited as a significant impediment to labour mobility. Not only would this bill provide tradespeople with some relief from the costs of relocating for work, but it would also provide them with a financial benefit that they or members of their family could spend in their home community, which would help support their local economies at home, such as in places like Kings—Hants.

By helping skilled tradespeople with the costs of travelling to work, Bill C-201 could also help address these regional skill shortages and potentially help to increase Canada's productivity. However, there are some important questions surrounding this bill that have yet to be answered, especially regarding the costs. I would hope the finance committee will be able to study the costs of implementing this kind of measure, once the bill has passed at second reading. It is important for parliamentarians to know how much legislation will actually cost before we make final decisions. As parliamentarians, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our citizens and Canadian taxpayers to fully understand the impacts on the fiscal framework in Canada of our decisions and the legislation we pass.

In the first hour of debate on the bill, the member for Hamilton Mountain estimated that approximately 160,000 construction workers in Canada could benefit from the tax credit in Bill C-201 at a cost of $84 million per year to the federal treasury. Then she estimated that when we consider economic spinoffs and potentially reduced EI payouts, the government could actually save $167 million per year under Bill C-201. On the other hand, the parliamentary secretary to the revenue minister argued that Bill C-201 would cost the treasury approximately $60 million per year at maturity. Therefore, there is a wide disparity in the numbers being cited in terms of what this would cost or potentially save taxpayers.

In cases where private member's bills are expected to have significant costs or impact on the fiscal framework, the finance committee in the past has asked the PBO to calculate what that fiscal impact would be before a second reading vote. However, the PBO has not been able to estimate the fiscal impact of this particular bill. The PBO told my office that it had tried to estimate the costs of this bill but could not. This is why. It stated:

There was not sufficient detail in the bill around the definition of trades persons nor around the details of what constituted travel for the purposes of commuting or for the purposes of relocating, nor was there sufficient data from stats can to allow any meaningful costing of this bill.

Therefore, it appears that Bill C-201 is still lacking details that are essential to providing a meaningful cost estimate, and the PBO has said that its office is having difficulty costing it because of that lack of granularity.

Still that is no reason, necessarily, to throw out the baby with the bathwater on this one, because there still may be some positives in the intentions to provide some level of support to skilled tradespeople and their families, and an opportunity for us to do this. We at the finance committee, perhaps, can pass some clarifying amendments that can help address some of these concerns, can better define “skilled tradespeople” exactly in terms of how we would constitute it for this application, and also more clearly define “relocation” or “commuting expense” so we can actually cost the bill and the PBO can actually cost it.

Another area where we have some questions is around the distance a worker must travel to qualify for a tax deduction. Bill C-201 proposes that a skilled tradesperson would qualify for this tax deduction if the worker travels at least 80 kilometres for work. The threshold of 80 kilometres may result in a large proportion of the benefit potentially going to daily commuters in the Toronto area or other metropolitan areas, workers for whom this credit is not necessarily intended.

For instance, workers who commute between Barrie and Toronto travel 96 kilometres each way, and those who commute between Guelph and Toronto would travel 95 kilometres each way. We would want to have this discussion. Is that the intention of this bill? Perhaps it is, but I am saying that there may be some definitions of what defines appropriately a commute for financial benefit considered under this bill. These are areas where there are good roads, infrastructure, strong or reasonable public transit, which help to facilitate a daily commute more so than that which would exist in other areas of Canada that do not have the same highly evolved infrastructure. Therefore, the finance committee may want to consider establishing different thresholds, depending on geography and infrastructure, instead of having one across-the-board threshold when it comes to how far people must travel to qualify for this benefit.

We may want to look at examples from other jurisdictions. As I mentioned before, a thriving construction industry in Canada is an important source of good jobs and incomes for Canadian middle class families, and we can no doubt all talk about individual stories of workers who have travelled great distances for work. I know in my father's case he was not in the construction trade but he drove 52 miles from Cheverie to downtown Halifax every day for work, for decades. Today, I know the local construction workers in my home community of Cheverie drive into Halifax every single day on sometimes terrible roads in awful conditions in the middle of winter, leaving their homes at 5 a.m., driving home in the evenings, leaving before dawn and getting home after dark, and piling into cars with their lunch boxes and their thermoses and their gear ready to go to work, driving over these rough roads in terrible conditions, every single day from Cheverie, Bramber, Walton, Scotch Village, and all our local communities.

Part of the discussions around this bill will enable us to talk to the people in our own communities who commute long distances every day, and particularly people in skilled trades whom we need to support in any way we can. I appreciate the challenges facing the construction industry in areas where there are serious labour shortages, but we need to ensure this bill is targeted in such a way that it actually addresses those issues.

Improving labour mobility in Canada would lead to greater productivity and more prosperity for Canadians. At the same time, we must be careful not to drive a critical mass of young Canadians out of economically disadvantaged communities that need them. We have to monitor this and we have to craft public policy carefully.

Canada is experiencing very uneven economic growth. There is a strong connection between our growing provinces and the existence of natural resources. We need national strategies around the extractive sector in oil and gas and the related construction industry if we are going to ensure that the prosperity is shared across Canada and enjoyed by all Canadians, regardless of where they are from.

This bill could perhaps help to address some of those inequities and help young Canadians see some of those opportunities. However, we will have to delve into those details on a more granular basis at the House of Commons finance committee.

The House resumed from October 31, 2013, consideration of the motion that Bill C-201, an Act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Income Tax Deductions for Tradespeople

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition in support of Bill C-201, introduced by my colleague from Hamilton Mountain, which would allow tradespeople and their apprentices to deduct accommodation and travel expenses. These are people from Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick who support my NDP colleague's bill.

Income Tax Act

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, my private member's bill, Bill C-201, is going to be coming to a vote in the House next Wednesday, and I have more petitions in support of the bill from Cornwall, Prescott, Ottawa, Napanee, Kanata and Oshawa. All of the petitioners want the government to support Bill C-201 so that trades people and indentured apprentices would be able to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their home.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from a broad array of Alberta communities, from Edmonton, Spruce Grove, Grand Cache, Camrose, Sherwood Park, St. Albert, Devon, Calmar, and Turner Valley.

The petitioners support Bill C-201, introduced by the member for Hamilton Mountain, to allow tradespeople and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from taxable income to support workers who are required to secure employment outside their region.

Employment

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have a petition signed by many Canadians. It is on the issue of tradespeople travelling to other parts of the country, trying to find work.

It is certainly something that happens a lot in the Atlantic provinces. The petition supports Bill C-201, introduced by my colleague, the member for Hamilton Mountain. It allows tradesperons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their home, a very important issue. I am happy to affix my signature and table said petition.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a number of petitions today from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, southwestern Ontario and the Golden Horseshoe, including my community of Hamilton Mountain. The petitioners are asking the House of Commons to enact my bill, Bill C-201, on an urgent basis, because it does not make any sense that tradespeople be out of work in one area of the country while another region suffers from temporary skilled labour shortages.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as members know, the Conservatives have said for quite some time that they are concerned about regional skills shortages in our country, and yet the government has not done very much to address labour mobility.

In fact, the petitioners point out that many tradespeople can be out of work in one area of the country, while another region suffers from temporary skilled labour shortages simply because the cost of travelling is too high. Out of work tradespeople currently have to finance their own travel and accommodation should they wish to move to another region where jobs are available.

The petitioners therefore support my bill, Bill C-201, and urge everyone in Parliament to do the same because the bill would allow tradespeople and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so they could secure and maintain employment at a construction site that would be more than 80 kilometres from their home.

Income Tax Deductions for Tradespersons

[Yvon Godin, NDP, Acadie—Bathurst, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present.

My first petition comes from 170 people. It calls upon the Parliament of Canada to support Bill C-201, which would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their homes.

Income Tax Deductions for Tradespeople

[Kennedy Stewart, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition is with respect to Bill C-201 regarding the right of tradespeople and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income.

I have many friends in the building trades who I know would support this petition, and I really urge the government to take it seriously.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure I table a petition from the residents of Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, and Tofield, Alberta. The petitioners bring to the attention of the House that many out-of-work tradespeople currently have to finance their own travel and accommodation if they have to move to another region to obtain a job, which is, of course, what the government is trying to encourage.

The petitioners call on the Parliament of Canada to support private member's Bill C-201, tabled by the member for Hamilton Mountain, which would allow tradespeople and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so they could secure and maintain employment at construction sites more than 80 kilometres from their homes.

Income Tax Deductions

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to table four petitions today that come from Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, all in support of my bill, Bill C-201.

As members know, many tradespersons can be out of work in one area of the country while another region suffers from temporary skilled labour shortages, simply because the cost of travelling is too high. My bill would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they could secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their homes.

The petitioners are urging this Parliament to pass that bill immediately.

Taxation

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, the second petition calls on the Parliament of Canada to support Bill C-201, which would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so they could secure and maintain employment at a construction site that would be more than 80 kilometres from their home.

That bill was presented by the member for Hamilton Mountain.

Income Tax Act

[Ryan Leef, Conservative, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity today to speak to Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, to allow:

—tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct from their taxable income any travel and accommodation expenses that they have incurred in order to secure and maintain employment in a construction activity at a job site that is located at least 80 kilometres away from their ordinary place of residence.

While the hon. member's goal is worthy, to support tradespersons and indentured apprentices, her proposal contains a few flaws. Providing a deduction for job-related travel and accommodation expenses as proposed under Bill C-201 will make it difficult to ensure that tax relief is not provided for personal expenses solely reflecting lifestyle decisions.

Similarly, the open-ended nature of the proposed deduction raises serious concerns that could also make it vulnerable to abuse and unfair tax planning. For example, one can envision a situation where an individual can claim a residence, perhaps a cottage, more than 80 kilometres from work as their principal residence and then deduct those costs of maintaining their urban residence as an expense required to secure and maintain employment.

This bill would raise equality concerns as eligible tradespersons and indentured apprentices would be able to reduce their tax liability when they incurred eligible travel and accommodation expenses, whereas other workers who must incur similar work-related travel expenses, such as nurses, firefighters, correctional officers, would not receive that same tax assistance.

There is also a risk that this bill would simply result in a windfall gain to individuals who have incurred eligible travel expenses and accommodation in any case. Estimates suggest that providing tax assistance to tradespersons and apprentices for travel and accommodation could cost approximately $60 million every year at maturity. These costs are substantial. Our government is already on track to eliminate the deficit and remain squarely focused on this goal. Canadians expect us to be fiscally responsible at all times. Therefore, while our government is ensuring that we continue to support tradespersons and apprentices, this bill is not a measure that we can support.

Let me also suggest to the member opposite that tax changes should be undertaken through the budget process and not on an ad hoc basis. The budget process enables the government to fully consider trade-offs, balance priorities and undertake new fiscal commitments only to the extent that they are affordable. The hon. member should also be aware that Canada's tax system already provides a number of tax relief provisions for employees, including tradespersons who travel or relocate for their employment. For example, there is a moving expense deduction which recognizes costs incurred by workers who move their ordinary place of residence at least 40 kilometres closer to their place of business or employment in order to pursue employment or education opportunities.

There is a also a special and remote work sites tax provision that allows employers to provide board and lodging benefits to employees on a tax-free basis. Under this provision, where an employee is required to work at a remote location where only employer-provided accommodation is available, while continuing to pay expenses associated with his or her own home, amounts paid by the employer for room and board at the remote location are not included in the employee's income. The exemption recognizes in many instances employers need to provide these benefits in order to attract workers to a particular work site.

There is also a travel expense deduction which recognizes costs associated with business travel. The travel expense deduction allows employees who are ordinarily required to carry on the duties of employment away from the employer's place of business or in different locations to deduct travel expenses incurred, including 50% of their meal expenses when they are required by the employer to pay their expenses on their own. For example, an employee who must travel from his normal work site in Ottawa to Brampton or from Whitehorse to Carmacks in order to perform employment-related duties may claim a deduction for eligible travel and meal expenses to the extent that their employer does not already pay those expenses.

Similarly, self-employed individuals may deduct reasonable expenses incurred in connection with the generation of income from a business, including travel expenses such as lodging and, again, 50% of their meal costs while they are away from home.

Close to home for me, there is the northern residents deduction, which provides tax relief to individuals in northern and isolated communities to assist in drawing skilled labour to the North.

Finally, in 2006 our government introduced the Canada employment credit for all employees. In 2013, the Canada employment credit provides a tax credit of up to $1,117 on employment income. By increasing the amount of income that employed Canadians can earn without paying federal income tax, the employment credit recognizes that some of the income that individuals earn is used to pay for work-related expenses.

Our government is committed to lower taxes for all Canadians, tradespersons included. That is why, since coming into office in 2006, we have introduced broad-based tax relief such as lowering the GST from 7% to 5% and introducing the tax-free savings account.

In total, we have introduced more than 160 tax-relief measures, reducing taxes in every way that the Government of Canada collects them. Canadians at all income levels are benefiting from the personal income tax relief introduced by our government, with low- and middle-income Canadians receiving proportionally greater relief. Overall, personal income tax rates are now 11% lower with the tax relief provided by the government, and more than one million low-income Canadians have been removed entirely from our tax rolls.

Our strong record of tax relief is saving the typical Canadian family of four more than $3,200 each and every year. This is significant. It means that hard-working Canadians from coast to coast to coast have more money in their own pockets at the end of every year so they can decide how best to spend that money.

In addition, our government has been aggressive in closing tax loopholes used by a small group of taxpayers who have been trying to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Ensuring tax fairness keeps taxes low for all Canadians and their families.

To conclude, while we understand the objectives of the bill, it is flawed, and therefore we simply cannot support it.

The proposed deductions would be hard to monitor, would make it vulnerable to unfair tax planning, would be limited to amounts earned at the new work location in the year, and would cost approximately $60 million a year at maturity. Therefore, I urge all members to join me in opposing the bill before us for reasons I have mentioned.

Some questions about mobility rights and the importance of mobility across our country were discussed earlier. While we recognize that mobility is important, the one thing I have heard as the member of Parliament for Yukon as I have travelled across the North is people saying that they want Yukon people for Yukon jobs, northern people for northern jobs. I would say that the same thing is true for all regions in our country.

Proposing the bill without supporting the other important measures that our government has put in place in budget 2013 and previous budgets that would actually make it a reality for Yukon people to get Yukon jobs, northern people to get northern jobs, and regional people to get regional jobs so that mobility is not a requirement would be something the opposition should seriously take a look at.

I can point to examples like the Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining in my home territory where we are trying to improve working conditions and take an unskilled labour force and move it into semi-skilled and highly skilled labour opportunities. The literacy investments that our government is making across the three territories to give people that first chance of success in their own home so they do not have to exercise those mobility rights is a critical measure.

I am surprised that the members of the opposition have not supported those measures, in particular the member for Western Arctic, who has voted against those critical measures each and every time we put them in place.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I stand in support of Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons. I want to thank the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain for tabling the bill in the House of Commons. I want to thank the hon. member on behalf of untold thousands, tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, Atlantic Canadians and Canadians in general who migrate for work across the country and around the world. I meet them at airports. I talk to them on airplanes. I knock on the doors of their families left behind.

Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a history of working away from home. Our forefathers worked on the Grand Banks and off the Labrador coast for months on end. They lived on wooden walls, the sealing ships, for weeks, when they were in the fat, when the seal hunt was in its prime.

In my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, on the top of Signal Hill, at the entrance to St. John's harbour, is a peak that is known as Ladies Lookout. Ladies Lookout is the very point where women gathered for generations to look for their men returning from sea after days, weeks, months and years. The wharf and lookout of yesterday is the airport of today.

So many Newfoundland and Labrador families live on a rotation: two weeks on, one week off; four weeks on, two weeks off. Long commutes and extended absences have been a way of life in Newfoundland and Labrador. However, the scale and intensity of the westward move to places like Fort McMurray, Grande Prairie and Lloydminster that began a few decades ago sets it apart from past experience. Let me quote from a recent article I read on the Newfoundland and Labrador migration: “Some call it a rite of passage. Some wives back home call it a fiscal blessing, but a blow to the heart”.

It is not just men who migrate for work; it is women too. It is our youth, our newly educated, bayman and townie alike. Leaving for work is a way of life, especially since the early 1990s when our fisheries collapsed. We have lost 90,000 people since then. One-sixth of our population left. They are gone. Untold thousands of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians migrate for work on a weekly or monthly basis so that their families can live comfortably back home. It is how I grew up, personally, with my father away for six to nine months at a time. He worked on what was then known as the Distant Early Warning line across the north.

If one drives through the outports today in rural Newfoundland and Labrador one will see nice, new homes and nice vehicles. There is pride in property, but we've always seen that. My office has tried to research the amount of money that migrant Newfoundland and Labrador workers bring back with them. There are no accurate numbers, but I can say it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It is in the billions of dollars. According to Statistics Canada, the number of workers commuting from Atlantic Canada to Alberta increased threefold between 2004 and 2008. The median earning for oil and gas workers in Alberta who live out of province was just under $60,000 in 2009.

Bill C-201 would impact thousands of Atlantic Canadians and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. The bill would allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income. The bill would allow tradespeople to maintain employment on work sites that are more than 80 kilometres away. The bill would help migratory workers and migratory construction workers. There is no doubt that the bill would help workers in my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl, in all of Newfoundland and Labrador and in Atlantic Canada.

Workers have to leave home. That is hard enough, but they should not have to foot the bill for travel and accommodation too. Under current rules, construction workers often incur large personal expenses to accept jobs in other parts of the province or country because neither travel nor accommodation expenses are tax deductible under the Income Tax Act. These costs create a huge disincentive for workers to accept work in other parts of the country that are experiencing skills shortages.

Figures suggest that the average mobile worker spends approximately $3,500 of his or her own money to temporarily relocate. That $3,500 is a significant barrier to the appeal of accepting jobs away from home. We have to make it easier and more enticing for skilled labourers in this country to fill labour shortages in other parts of the country.

How much will the bill cost? It is actually revenue neutral for the federal government, because the cost associated with the income tax cut is more than made up by savings in employment insurance. Instead of punishing Canadians who receive EI, we can start helping skilled labourers in this country by making it easier for them to accept work.

Let me throw out some numbers. There are an estimated 1.6 million construction workers in Canada, and 10% of them travel each year. At an average cost of $3,500 per worker, a 15% tax credit would cost the federal government $525 per mobile worker per year, for a total cost of $84 million. However, if the same number of 160,000 travelling skilled trades workers, which is 10% of 1.6 million, received average weekly employment insurance benefits of $393 per week, for an average period of unemployment of four weeks, the government would pay $250 million in EI benefits per year. That works out to $84 million from a tax cut versus $250 million in EI benefits. The tax credit proposed in the bill would result in net savings of more than $160 million a year.

The bill would not just help workers. The bill would help employers, because they would have larger pools of skilled workers across this country to draw from. They would not have to resort to hiring temporary foreign workers to get the jobs done.

The bill would also help Newfoundland and Labrador. We have huge projects on the horizon, such as Labrador's Muskrat Falls and offshore oil projects. We have had three new offshore oil discoveries within the past year off Newfoundland and Labrador.

Despite successive Conservative and Liberal governments making promises for years about helping migratory workers, there has been nothing done. In fact, this bill has been tabled in each Parliament since 2006. It was part of the New Democratic Party's platform in 2008 and 2011. Now we have the opportunity again to help migratory workers in this country.

The ask is simple. Allow our tradespeople and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable incomes so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their homes. It is that simple.

People in this mobile workforce maintain homes and families in communities across Canada, in Atlantic Canada, and in Newfoundland and Labrador while using personal funds to maintain employment.

Included in the tax credit would be the cost of travel, meals, and accommodation, less any money paid by the employer for those purposes.

To conclude, the bill makes sense for workers. The bill makes sense for families. The bill makes sense for employers. The bill makes sense for industry. The bill makes sense for taxpayers. The bill makes sense, period.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue and for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in debate today on Bill C-201, which is sponsored by the member for Hamilton Mountain.

The bill proposes to allow tradespeople and apprentices to deduct from their taxable income travel and accommodation expenses that they incur in order to secure and maintain employment. These deductions would be subject to certain conditions.

I would like to focus on a few reasons why I oppose Bill C-201.

First of all, our government is quite focused on providing support for employees and tradespeople across the country. Second, the bill would be ineffective and inequitable. It would be ineffective because there is no evidence that the proposal would increase the likelihood that tradespeople will travel more for work, and inequitable in that some tradespeople would receive tax relief for work-related travel while other workers would not.

Third, especially during a time of fiscal responsibility, the bill would be very costly and that cost would be significant at this time in our economy. The bill looks nice and has a nice sound to it. It is kind of like a chocolate cake with a lot of icing on it. We look at the icing on the chocolate cake and say it looks tasty, but it really is not good for us. There is no way to square that piece of cake to be good for us.

I will start by highlighting our government's role in supporting employees and tradespeople. I would like to say that the hon. member for Hamilton Mountain did not support any of the legislation that we brought in to support employees and tradespeople. That needs to be noted during this debate. I mean, it is one thing to have a personal preference. It is one thing to have a party bias. I think we all have some party bias in this place. However, it is another thing to ignore good legislation simply because it is the government that brings it in.

Canada's strong economic performance during the global recession has been widely recognized around the world. Although it may not have gotten the same amount of press as other key initiatives, Canada's economic action plan provided key funding to several organizations to stimulate growth and jobs during the recent recession and helped tradespeople and other Canadians find jobs.

Our government knows that Canadian workers are among the best educated and the best trained in the world. However, Canada is facing a skilled labour shortage. In particular, persistent pockets of unfilled positions exist for some skilled tradespeople and professional occupations. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce, for example, has identified Canada's skills shortage as the number one issue facing its membership.

Our government takes this issue seriously. To help Canadians connect with available jobs, in economic action plan 2013 we set out a three-point plan to address these challenges. First, economic action plan 2013 introduced the new Canada job grant, which would provide $15,000 or more per person, including the maximum federal contribution of $5,000, to be matched by the provinces, territories and employers, to ensure Canadians are getting the skills employers are seeking.

Second, the plan would create opportunities for apprentices by working with provinces and territories to examine the use of practical tests as a method of assessment and to harmonize requirements, and by introducing measures that would support the use of apprentices through federal construction and maintenance contracts, investments in affordable housing and infrastructure projects that receive federal funding. Finally, it would provide support to groups that are under-represented in the job market, such as persons with disabilities, youth, aboriginal peoples and newcomers, to help them find good jobs.

These are great initiatives that are directly helping to fill the labour shortages and connect Canadians with jobs. These are all measures that the opposition has voted against. If the member's bill attempts to focus on apprentices and tradespeople, let me highlight some of the measures our government has already taken to support these individuals.

Since 2006, our government has invested nearly $2.7 billion per year to support skills and training programs. We have supported tradespeople with the tradesperson's tools deduction and extended the fees eligible for the tuition tax credit to include those examinations required to be certified as a tradesperson in Canada, thereby encouraging more tradespeople to become red seal tradesmen. With a red seal, they can work anywhere in the country.

Our government has legislated measures such as the apprenticeship job creation tax credit, the apprenticeship incentive grant, and the apprenticeship completion grant. Tax credits already exist for employers and tradespersons, such as the Canada employment credit, the moving expenses deduction, and the special or remote work sites tax exemptions.

That is not all. We understand that education has a big part in this equation as well. We will promote education in fields where there is high demand for employees, including science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and skilled trades. We will help improve educational and labour market outcomes for aboriginal peoples by investing to improve the on-reserve income assistance program and by providing funding for post-secondary scholarships and bursaries.

We will continue to work with the provinces and territories and stakeholders to improve the foreign credential recognition process, thereby enhancing the integration of internationally trained individuals in the job market.

Put simply, our government remains focused on what matters to Canadians—jobs and economic growth and ensuring that Canada's economic advantage today will translate into the long-term prosperity of tomorrow.

Let me now address some of the specific concerns we have with the bill before us.

First, we believe that providing an income tax deduction for job-related travel and accommodation expenses, as proposed under Bill C-201, would make it difficult to ensure that tax relief is not provided for personal expenses that reflect lifestyle decisions. Under the provisions of this bill, expenses incurred by eligible individuals who choose to live more than 80 kilometres from the workplace for personal reasons would quality for tax relief.

Second, the open-ended nature of the proposed deduction would make it vulnerable to unfair tax planning and abuse. For example, individuals could arrange their affairs to claim a recreational property, such as a cottage that is more than 80 kilometres from work, as their principal residence. They could then deduct the cost of maintaining their urban residence as an expense required to secure and maintain employment. That is a serious flaw with this piece of proposed legislation. This is not conductive to a fair tax system, especially as we have just been debating Bill C-4, which emphasizes our government's commitment to a fair tax system for all Canadians.

Third, the bill would raise equity concerns, as eligible tradespersons and indentured apprentices would be able to reduce their tax liability when they incurred eligible travel and accommodation expenses whereas other workers who had to incur similar work-related travel expenses, such as nurses, would not receive tax assistance. This would result in individuals with a similar capacity to pay taxes having markedly different tax liabilities, due solely to occupational differences.

Fourth, it is not clear that the bill would increase travel by tradespersons and indentured apprentices. In fact, for individuals who would have incurred eligible travel and accommodation expenses in any case, the deduction would represent a windfall gain.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the cost of the proposal would be significant. Preliminary estimates suggest that providing tax assistance to tradespersons and indentured apprentices for travel and accommodation expenses would cost approximately $60 million per year at maturity. At a time when our government is committed to returning to balanced budgets and eliminating the deficit, this bill, which already raises some concerns, would be extremely costly to the government.

In addition, Bill C-201 would create pressure to extend tax relief in respect of other expenses or other types of employees, at a higher fiscal cost.

Make no mistake. Our government believes in tax relief for all Canadians. Canadians know that when it comes to tax reductions, this government has a long-standing record of significant achievements. By keeping taxes low, our government is allowing Canadians to keep more of their hard-earned money.

In conclusion, this bill is poorly targeted, would subsidize personal choices, and would open the door to unfair tax planning. It would also entail a cost of approximately $60 million per year. It would create pressure to extend tax relief to other work-related expenses at a higher fiscal cost. In addition, our government already provides tax relief and program support for tradespersons and apprentices and tax relief for employees who must incur travel-related expenses in the course of their employment.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

moved that Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, I cannot believe that the time has finally come to debate Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons). It is the very first bill I introduced in this chamber after being elected in January 2006 and it is a bill that is near and dear to my heart.

However, my wait is nothing compared with the wait experienced by the workers who are at the heart of my bill. The Canadian building and construction trades have been lobbying for this legislation for over 35 years. Their tenacity on this file is remarkable and ought to be indicative to the government that this issue matters deeply to the very people who have literally built our country.

In fact, I would be remiss if I did not publicly thank Bob Blakely, the chief operating officer of the Canadian Building Trades Unions, for his personal commitment to this bill and for never ceasing to fight for the best interests of his members. Bob knows only too well what a bumpy road it has been to get to this point today.

Both Liberal and Conservative governments have made promises to the building trades in the past about concrete action to come. However, those games of political footsie led exactly nowhere.

It is time for the games to stop and for all members in the House to stand up and be counted. Lip service is no longer good enough. I am delighted to give members the opportunity to clarify their positions in the coming vote on my bill.

I know, Mr. Speaker, that you follow American politics closely, so you will remember former Speaker Tip O'Neill coining the phrase “all politics is local”. It is the principle that a politician's success is directly tied to his or her ability to understand and influence the issues of constituents.

While that certainly encapsulates the genesis of bill that we are debating today, I introduced it because of the amazing education and awareness-raising efforts of the members of the Building and Construction Trades Council in my hometown of Hamilton.

In particular, I want to single out the leadership of business manager Joe Beattie, who invited me to meet with the building trades about this issue before I was even elected.

We can see that the Hamilton building trades are not just savvy lobbyists, they are also clairvoyant. They knew I would eventually get elected, even before I believed it myself.

The case that was put to me by Joe, along with the members of Carpenters Local 18, UA Local 67 and Sheetmetal Workers Local 537, made sense then, and it still makes sense now. It makes sense for workers, who would benefit from a reduction in their temporary relocation costs and a reduction in time spent unemployed. It makes sense for employers which will benefit from access to larger pools of qualified workers and reduced costs relating to participation in programs such as the temporary foreign workers program. It makes sense for the government, because it would benefit from increased long-term income tax revenues and reduced dependence on costly social programs.

However, let me not put the cart before the horse. Let us start at the beginning and look at the issue that my bill is seeking to address, the specific remedy that it offers and the opportunity that it represents for the government and all members of the House.

Right now, there are two major human resource challenges facing Canada's construction industry: regional labour shortages and barriers to labour mobility.

The 2011 edition of the Construction Sector Council's “Construction Looking Forward” report suggests that to replace retiring workers and maintain productivity, construction employers, collectively, must hire more than 320,000 new workers between now and 2019. While training programs and recruitment from non-traditional labour sources are part of the solution, they will not be enough to ameliorate the significant labour shortages that are projected for the decade ahead.

Compounding this problem is the unevenness of demand for construction workers. Some regions of the country, such as Newfoundland and Labrador, are expected to face significant worker shortages until next year. Others, such as Ontario, will offer fewer work opportunities in the short term, but many more between 2015 and 2019. A third group, including Quebec, Nova Scotia and Alberta, will offer consistently high numbers throughout the forecast period.

With the demand for labour thus high in some parts of the country and lower in others, it would be in everyone's best interest to facilitate the mobility of unemployed workers from one part of the country to job openings in another.

This would be an easy problem to solve if construction jobs were permanent, but they are not. Construction is a transitory business. When a hospital, a mall or, for that matter, a Pan Am stadium is built, the job is done. Work can last for days, weeks or months, but the bottom line is that it is not permanent and no worker can fairly be expected to move his or her family to a new city every time the workplace changes, and therein lies the rub.

Under current rules, construction workers often incur large personal expenses to accept jobs in other parts of the province or country because neither their travel nor accommodation expenses are tax deductible under the Income Tax Act. As a result, these costs create a huge disincentive for workers to accept work in those parts of the country that are experiencing skills shortages.

Figures compiled on behalf of the building and construction trades department of the AFL-CIO suggest that the average mobile worker spends approximately $3,500 of his or her own money to temporarily relocate. That is a significant barrier to the appeal of working mobile. Without wanting to be too cute, I ask my hon. colleagues to imagine what would happen in this place if we told members tomorrow that they could no longer get financial assistance for their secondary residence here in Ottawa while they are here on the job, or for their travel for that matter.

If that is not enough to spur us on to creating fairness for the building trades, let me just remind members that this House already acknowledged that transitory workers merit financial support, and budget 2008 provided a tax break to truck drivers to assist with mobility challenges in that industry. I am calling on us to do the right thing here today and create a labour mobility tax credit for the building and construction industry too. Specifically, my bill would allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income, so they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their home. Adopting this bill would remove one of the largest stated barriers to labour mobility in our country and would pave the road for workers to move freely between regions of the country where their skills are in demand. For me, this is absolutely the right thing to do, and I do not believe that this issue has to be partisan. In fact, I know it is not.

Let me remind members than in April 2008, the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities supported my bill in intent if not by name. The two germane recommendations were numbers 1.6 and 1.7. Recommendation number 1.6 reads:

The Committee recommends that the federal government examine the moving expenses provision of the Income Tax Act with a view to extending this provision to individuals who must leave their principal residence to work on a temporary basis, provided their principal residence is retained.

Recommendation number 1.7 says:

The Committee recommends that the federal government provide funding to assist individuals who agree to relocate to enter employment in occupations experiencing skills shortages.

Both of those recommendations are spot-on.

Yes, these recommendations were adopted during a minority Parliament, so it may be assumed that the government members did not actually support them. However, let me provide further evidence to the contrary. Before the Standing Committee on Finance on November 19, 2012, the Conservative member for Fort McMurray—Athabasca responded to a presentation by a representative of the building trades by saying, “...I've been advocating since 2005 for a tax credit on travel and mobility”.

Just a month later, another report by the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities made this its 30th recommendation. It stated:

The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada study the anticipated cost of introducing new fiscal measures that would help people who find jobs far away from where they live, for example a tax credit for travel and lodging if a person must work more than 80 kilometres from his or her residence, and that it study the potential impact of such measures on labour mobility and labour shortages.

This time, the government had the majority of members on the committee, so that recommendation would not have passed without the support of the Conservatives.

I want to publicly thank the Conservatives who were members of the committee at that time. They are the members for Mississauga—Streetsville, Don Valley East, Okanagan—Shuswap, Brant and Calgary Northeast, and the member for Simcoe—Grey, who is now Canada's Minister of Labour. I know that the member for Mississauga—Streetsville, in particular, understands this issue and has been advocating for it inside his own caucus. Also, I hope the Minister of Labour is using her new clout to assist his efforts in every possible way. Since she has repeatedly mentioned her own family roots in Alberta's construction industry, I trust that she understands what is at stake here.

Certainly, all of the opposition members on the committee got it right away. I was but one member of that committee, and I was proud to note that my NDP colleagues at HUMA, the members for Hochelaga, Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup and St. John's South—Mount Pearl, have always stood four-square behind the building trades in their communities and immediately expressed their support for my bill.

I am also cautiously optimistic that my Liberal colleague from Cape Breton—Canso will see fit to vote for it, although truthfully I am not sure which side he was on when the issue was being discussed when the Liberals were in government, during their 13 years in office. What I do know is that in opposition he has been nothing but supportive, and I want to thank him for that.

This issue does have broad-based support. What is stopping it from becoming law? At one point both the Minister of Finance and the former Minister of Labour were concerned about how much my proposed tax credit would cost. They were not entirely convinced by the admittedly rough initial calculations, which showed that it would be revenue neutral, since the cost of the tax credit would be more than offset by savings in employment insurance payments that would no longer have to be made as unemployed Canadians went to work in other parts of the country.

However, the building trades took the minister's concern seriously and had the projections related to my bill audited by Hendry Warren. The audited numbers were given to every member of this House during the last building trades lobby day, and I trust that everyone will have familiarized themselves with the costing of my proposal. However, let us take a quick look at the numbers again just to make absolutely certain that we are all on the same page.

Hendry Warren estimated that there are 1.6 million construction workers in Canada. An estimated 10% of them travel each year. At an average cost of $3,500 per worker per year, a 15% tax credit would cost the government $525 per mobile worker per year, for a total cost of $84 million.

Working with the same number of 160,000 travelling skilled trades workers whose average weekly employment insurance benefit would be $393 per week for an average period of unemployment of four weeks if they were not working means that the government would pay $251 million in EI benefits per year. That means that the tax credit proposal in my bill would actually save the government $167 million per year.

Let me repeat that, Mr. Speaker, because these numbers will be germane in your consideration of whether my bill will ultimately require a royal recommendation. Far from being an expenditure, my bill would actually save the government $167 million each and every year, and that is just premised on savings on EI.

As the audited statement makes clear, when savings from all social programs are taken into account along with increased long-term income tax revenues from employment, the labour mobility tax credit is more likely to yield a return on the government's investment of nearly five to one. We would think the Minister of Finance would be doing a happy dance at the prospect of such a windfall.

The bill really is a win, win, win. As I said at the outset, workers win because the travel and accommodation costs would no longer be a barrier to accepting decent jobs for decent wages in other regions of the country; employers win because they would have access to larger pools of qualified workers without needing to resort to the costly temporary foreign workers program; the government wins by having taken a concrete step toward addressing regional skilled labour shortages, all the while reducing dependence on costly social programs and actually boosting long-term income tax revenues. It does not get much better than that.

Let me conclude by bringing this discussion full circle. I want to end where I began.

Locally and nationally, the building and construction trades have lobbied for the bill for over 35 years. They represent an industry that is critical to our economy. In fact, construction is Canada's largest private sector industry. Its direct impact is immense. Construction accounts for 12% of Canada's GDP.

The industry has more than 260,000 businesses, employing more than a million Canadians. It is responsible for installing, repairing, and renovating more than $150 billion worth of infrastructure every single year. It is a threshold industry on which everything else is based.

In a very real sense, the building and construction trades have built our country. It is time for us to shore up their work. It is time for us to heed their call for action. It is time for us to provide them with a tax credit for travel and accommodation expenses when they accept work more than 80 kilometres away from their home. It is time to pass my bill.

Income Tax

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition signed by many constituents in my riding of Thunder Bay—Rainy River in support of Bill C-201, which is a bill whose sponsor is our hard-working and quite wonderful member from Hamilton Mountain.

This bill will allow tradespeople and indentured apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres from their home.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, later today the House will begin debate on Bill C-201, which is my private member's bill to allow tradespeople to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their home.

In support of this bill, I have been flooded by petitions. I am pleased to table yet another set in the House today. This time the petitioners are from Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, including Whitby, the hometown of the Minister of Finance. There are literally hundreds of names on the petition, all urging the government to give quick passage to my bill.

I thank the petitioners for their support and I am pleased to be able to table this petition on their behalf.

Income Tax Act

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, last month I was in Nanaimo, where I had the opportunity to meet with a large number of labour activists from all over Vancouver Island, alongside my colleague from Nanaimo—Cowichan. One of the issues we discussed at length was my private members' bill, Bill C-201, which will be debated in the House for the first time next week.

I am delighted to say that the second petition I present in the House today was circulated as a result of those conversations. It is signed by almost 100 people from Vancouver Island, who are all urging the government to support Bill C-201 so that tradespersons and indentured apprentices can deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income when they work at a construction site more than 80 kilometres away from their homes.

I very much appreciate this expression of support from the west coast, and I am pleased to be able to table this petition in the House today.

[Michel Bédard]

Bill C-201 would amend the Income Tax Act to provide for a new deduction for travel and accommodation expenses for employees who are employed at a construction site in order to keep their job.

This bill does not concern questions outside federal jurisdiction. It does not appear to clearly violate the Constitution. There is no other private member's bill similar to it on the order paper, and there is no government bill similar to it on the order paper.

Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, maybe the Prime Minister should not have left the country. I think this may be the first time that two Conservatives are not on the same page with respect to their talking points. I asked the member for Calgary Northeast about the details of the Canada jobs grant and he said that he was still out there consulting. Yet the Minister of Labour just said that she was really excited about this program. She must know some details that the member for Calgary Northeast does not. However, I want to ask her about something more specific today.

She will know that one of the ways to fill a skills shortage in the country is by assisting people with labour mobility. We have people in some parts of the country who are unable to access employment whereas we have skills shortages in other parts of the country and there is an opportunity for us to do the right thing and bring people together.

The minister knows, because she has been lobbied by people in my riding, including Joe Beattie from the Hamilton-Brantford Building Trades Council, about my Bill C-201, which would facilitate such labour mobility for people who are working more than 80 kilometres away from home to be eligible for a tax credit for accommodation and travel expenses. The bill was actually supported in the HUMA committee recommendations. Could the Minister of Labour tell the House today whether she also supports the bill?

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comments, there were many areas in the study on skills shortages that we actually agreed upon, on all sides of the House. What the member wants is that I suggest that in some areas of the country there are skills shortages of such a nature that we absolutely have to bring in temporary foreign workers and that we have to be able to get access to cheap labour. Frankly, that is a recommendation with which I cannot agree, because until we actually provide decent wages for jobs and provide Canadians with the kind of skills training that enables them to fill the jobs in the areas where there are shortages, and until we provide incentives for labour mobility, temporary foreign workers should be the very last resort.

As members know, from following the debates in this House, is that whether at HD Mining or at RBC, what is happening now is that temporary foreign workers are coming into this country and are displacing Canadians and Canadian jobs. That is completely unacceptable, so we are calling on the government to help Canadians access those jobs. Again, it would do that by offering decent wages, by investing in a comprehensive skills training program and by supporting labour mobility initiatives, such as my Bill C-201, which I am very hopeful will come to the House soon. I look forward to the support of my colleagues on the government side of this House.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House this afternoon to move concurrence in the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities presented on Wednesday, December 12, 2012, with respect to labour and skills shortages in Canada. The subtitle of the report is “Addressing Current and Future Challenges”.

There is no doubt that a vital competitive economy in the global era requires the development of a skilled workforce that provides Canadian employers with the workers they need and that provides Canadian workers with the opportunities they deserve. In order to achieve that goal Canada needs to find the right match between skills and employment opportunities so that we do not suffer from skills shortages and high unemployment at the same time.

My NDP colleagues and I supported the standing committee's report on labour shortages in Canada, and we were particularly pleased to see recommendations on incentives for training and labour mobility. However, we also think there are some important areas in which the recommendations did not go far enough in addressing the crucial challenges that Canada faces.

Let me begin with some general areas of concern that were raised in testimony by a number of witnesses who appeared before our committee.

It is true that labour shortages were already being felt prior to the 2008-2009 recession, especially in the western provinces. The recession eased this pressure, but already shortages are reappearing in certain regions and sectors.

Given the aging population, it is likely that labour and skills shortages will increase, but this will not be true for all regions nor for all occupational groups. While shortages may be less severe in occupations requiring fewer qualifications, low-skilled occupations are also experiencing shortages, especially in regions with strong and rapid economic growth.

The first finding of the study, which was reiterated by many witnesses, is that no single solution will magically solve the challenges caused by labour and skills shortages. Various complementary solutions must be identified.

One solution that was mentioned often by the witnesses who appeared as part of the study was to make all the essential information on future labour needs available so that educational programs can be created and modified accordingly, and so that consequently young people can choose occupations that will be in high demand.

Obviously that will not be possible without high-quality labour market information. The holders of these data must work together to avoid duplication and find ways to improve both the quality of the information as well as the distribution of all LMI products to the people who can benefit the most from its use.

Another solution the committee heard throughout the study was to maximize the untapped potential of individuals and certain groups of the Canadian population that have a lower participation rate or a higher unemployment rate than average, such as mature workers, people with disabilities, aboriginal peoples and recent immigrants. These groups represent a huge pool of untapped talents and could help address a significant part of the skills shortages.

Other suggestions made by witnesses include increasing labour force mobility, increasing awareness of trades and professions in demand that are not popular with young people, providing workers with adequate on-the-job training, increasing the level of basic skills, improving worker productivity and increasing reliance on partnerships between various levels of government, companies, educational institutions, students and workers.

Of course, special mention was made of the temporary foreign worker program, around which there was a significant consensus that there had to be reform. Given the recent media spotlight on the temporary foreign worker program, I do not think that will surprise any member in the House.

The recommendations in the report address many of these concerns. In fact, there were 38 recommendations made by the committee, most of which my NDP colleagues and I agreed with. Let me re-emphasize the word “most”, because as one can imagine, on a Conservative-dominated committee, much of the language in this report is both self-congratulatory and slanted to the needs of employers only. Nonetheless, we did find some significant common ground.

There were, however, also areas of significant disagreement, and I want to spend the better part of my remaining time on those areas. These areas represent a huge missed opportunity, and I would hope that moving forward, the government will take a second look at our minority report and use it to shape additional measures that were lacking in the original recommendations.

Let me begin with comments about labour market information.

Time and time again the committee heard from witnesses that labour market information in Canada is not good enough. We heard that the data are not granular enough and do not allow for sufficient breakdown by occupation or region. The data are also not published frequently enough and do not allow for high-quality projections of shortages in the future. In fact, the committee's final report offers numerous instances in which the testimony from industries and the data available from current surveys disagree on whether or not there is or will be a skills or labour shortage in a given industry.

The Certified General Accountants Association recently published an examination of available sources of data that concluded that our current LMI is not good enough to enable policy-makers to effectively deal with labour shortages. It recommends “...closing the statistical information gap and improving the relevance and reliability of labour market statistics at the regional and occupational levels”.

Given that good LMI is the linchpin to good skills training and labour force development policy as well as crucial to good immigration policy and management of the temporary foreign worker program, we find the report's recommendation on LMI to be very weak indeed. We need more than better publicity for the data that are already being produced.

The experts on the advisory panel on labour market information established by the Forum of Labour Market Ministers have already provided an excellent blueprint of the steps that could be taken to improve the collection, analysis and use of LMI in Canada. For that reason, my NDP colleagues and I recommended that the government take steps to implement the recommendations made in the final report of the advisory panel on labour market information.

We also noted in our report that the weakness of our labour market information has been exacerbated by cuts to Statistics Canada and its surveys and by the elimination of core funding for sector councils, which play a crucial role in bringing together industry partners and provide very useful sector-specific LMI. Therefore, we also recommended that Statistics Canada be provided with the funding it needs to improve labour force-related surveys and that core funding be restored to sector councils.

Moving on to a second area that merited additional attention, I want to focus next on the need to develop the Canadian labour force.

While employers are experiencing shortages of both skilled and low-skilled labour, unemployment in Canada remains high, with six unemployed Canadians for every job vacancy. The Conservatives' response has been to blame the unemployed for their unemployment, to reduce access to employment insurance while trying to force Canadians to move to other parts of the country and to use the temporary foreign worker program to drive down wages.

By contrast, New Democrats believe that Canadian workers and employers benefit when Canadians are given the tools they need to be able to take available jobs. That is why we believe that investments in skills training are so important. We laud the report's recommendation that the government consider incentives to employers to invest in on-the-job training. However, we also recommend that the government review its bilateral agreements with the provinces to ensure that they provide maximum benefit to Canadians in need of training. For instance, the fact that the largest part of funding for skills training provided through labour market development agreements is limited to those who qualify for employment insurance benefits makes no sense when more than 6 in 10 unemployed Canadians are not qualifying for EI.

Similarly, we believe that Canadians need support for labour mobility rather than to be threatened with the loss of their EI benefits if they do not move for the jobs. We are pleased that the report recommends support for a tax credit for travel and lodging for those working more than 80 kilometres away from their residence. This is a proposal I have been pushing for years by introducing Bill C-201, an act to amend the Income Tax Act for travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons. The building and construction trades have been lobbying for this bill for over 30 years, and it continues to be one of the key priorities at each and every one of their legislative conferences.

In every Parliament the government has made vague promises of progress to come; then each Parliament ends without concrete action. The time to rectify that situation is now, and I appreciate the committee's support in this regard. The ask is simple: allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their home.

At a time when some regions of the country suffer from high unemployment while others suffer from temporary skilled labour shortages, the bill offers a solution to both. Best of all, it is revenue neutral for the government because the cost associated with the income tax cut is more than made up by the savings in employment insurance.

Now that the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons, there are no more excuses. The government can and must support the bill and act unequivocally to support Canada's building and construction trades. I am hoping to be able to test the government's resolve on this issue in the very near future.

Let me just give a quick shout out to some of the people from my hometown of Hamilton who have been instrumental in putting this issue on Parliament's agenda. In particular, I am thinking of Joe Beattie, Tim Penfold, Geoff Roman, Gary Elleker, Dave MacMaster, Paul Leger and all the members of the Hamilton-Brantford Ontario Building and Construction Trades Council, whose support for the bill has been unwavering and who, frankly, were the first to bring the issue to my attention.

I could talk about my bill and the need for its speedy adoption all day. Nonetheless, I recognize that my time here is limited and I also want to get some other issues on the record with respect to the current skills shortage.

One of the other barriers to labour mobility that was raised over and over again was the lack of affordable housing. Regions that are experiencing an economic boom cannot develop housing fast enough to offer workers reasonable accommodation at prices they can afford. Therefore, in our minority report we recommended that the government support NDP Bill C-400, which called on the government to create a national affordable housing strategy in co-operation with the provinces and territories.

Members will know that in the time since we tabled our report, the Conservatives defeated that bill in this House. To New Democrats and housing activists from coast to coast to coast, that was a devastating rejection of a desperately needed program. Canada remains the only G8 country without a housing strategy, while 1.5 million families and individuals are unable to access adequate, affordable housing. It is a national disgrace. Certainly the evidence we heard at committee confirmed that the lack of affordable housing should have been a priority for our federal government.

Similarly, testimony confirmed that the Conservatives also mismanaged the temporary foreign worker program, allowing employers to bring in temporary foreign workers with little to no monitoring for compliance with the rules of the program. The result has been that Canadian workers have lost out on jobs that should have been available to them, while temporary foreign workers face exploitation and rights violations.

If managed properly, the temporary foreign worker program should provide a temporary solution to a serious problem while emphasizing a longer-term response that promotes the best interests of Canadian workers and employers and our economy. The government has announced a review of the temporary foreign worker program, and New Democrats recommend that this review be conducted in a thorough and transparent manner, with a report tabled in the House of Commons as soon as the review is concluded.

Although this is another topic about which I could talk for hours, I will keep moving along.

Let us look next at the need for effective partnerships. In its skills strategy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development suggests that all relevant stakeholders must be involved in order to ensure an effective, comprehensive approach to skills policies. Designing effective skills policies requires more than coordinating different sectors of public administration and aligning different levels of government: a broad range of non-governmental actors, including employers, professional and industry associations, chambers of commerce, sector councils, trade unions, education and training institutions and individuals must all be involved.

New Democrats agree that policies are stronger when all relevant stakeholders are involved and consulted, and that is why we recommend that the development of policy options to improve labour market information to ensure a better match between the skills of graduates and the needs of employers and to develop strong curricula must always include all relevant stakeholders: federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments, businesses and industry, employee representatives and labour unions, educational institutions and student associations as well as not-for-profit groups.

Speaking of students, my NDP colleagues and I respect that one of the major goals of post-secondary education is skills training. However, we also recognize that this is not the only goal for Canada's colleges and universities and that there is a role for pure research.

We also respect academic freedoms and the rights of scholars to freely choose their subject areas and research projects. Therefore, we recommend that consultations on curricula always be undertaken with appropriate respect for the multiple roles of post-secondary educational institutions.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not say a few words about the participation of aboriginal peoples in the labour market. Our committee heard some very compelling testimony in that regard. As the report notes, aboriginal peoples' labour market outcomes must be improved to ensure that aboriginal peoples benefit from resource development to reduce aboriginal poverty and to provide the skilled labour force that Canada will need in the future.

A key element of aboriginal labour market outcomes is education, yet the report offers no recommendations on aboriginal education at all. If educational outcomes are to improve for aboriginal students, they need adequately funded education that respects their unique culture and history in safe and healthy school facilities.

First nations education is the jurisdiction of the federal government, which does not provide equitable funding for first nations children.

While budget 2012 provided some new funds for first nations education, only eight new schools were built out of 170 needed, and so far, no money has been committed directly to first nations schools for front-line education services.

According to the Assembly of First Nations, $500 million is needed to bring funding for first nations K-12 education to parity with non-aboriginal Canadians. The AFN has also noted that a gap in funding for post-secondary education has prevented more than 13,000 first nations students from pursuing higher education. Those realities are completely unacceptable. That is why my NDP colleagues and I recommended that the government provide sufficient and equitable funding for first nations K-12 education as well as post-secondary education, including vocational training and apprenticeships, and that the government remove the punitive 2% cap on funding increases to first nations.

The Conservatives' failure to take consultations seriously has already derailed this process once, with the chiefs withdrawing from the process due to inadequate consultation. That is why we further recommended that the government recognize first nations' jurisdiction over education and abide by the federal government's duty to consult by holding extensive and meaningful consultations leading to the creation of a first nations education act that respects first nations' rights, culture and history.

The federal government also provides funding for Inuit education through territorial transfers and land claims agreements. The education system is seriously failing Inuit youth, with only 25% graduating from high school. Those who do manage to graduate are still not at the same skill level as non-aboriginal students.

The report of Thomas Berger, a conciliator appointed to resolve differences in the negotiations for the implementation of the land claims agreement, found that education was a key factor in impeding progress on Inuit representation in the public service. It called for an increase of $20 million annually to education funding beyond what is provided through territorial financing.

The same holds true for other jobs. Inuit youth need culturally and linguistically appropriate education that enables them to stay in school and graduate with the skills they need to join the workforce. New Democrats therefore recommended that the government increase funding for Inuit education beyond the funding provided through territorial financing and land claims agreements.

Finally, the committee heard from multiple witnesses that the aboriginal skills and employment training strategy, ASETS, has been very successful in providing the training aboriginal Canadians need and the links with employers that help them find jobs after their training. However, the committee also heard that funding has been frozen since 1996, despite the fact that the need is greater than ever as the aboriginal population grows.

ASETS holders have also noted the heavy reporting burden that comes with their funding. A review of the program is beginning, and New Democrats recommend that the federal government include ASETS holders in the ongoing program review in a meaningful way and work with them to establish a process for stable, predictable and adequate funding to maintain and improve this highly successful program.

Let me try to sum up. To meet our labour force goals, we need more and better labour market data; incentives and/or requirements for employers to offer training programs; more support for workers seeking training; better EI programs; more affordable education programs; enhanced support for labour mobility; the ability of immigrants here to have their credentials recognized and a much faster and more efficient process; and better support for an immigration program that does more than simply provide cheap foreign labour with no path to citizenship.

Overall, we need to see the skills shortage as one important issue among a series of important labour market issues, the most important of which remains the still very high unemployment rate. With 1.4 million Canadians out of work, it is hard to make the argument that we have a national labour shortage. What we have are regional shortages that cannot overshadow the fact that the Conservative government's most lasting failure is to develop and implement a strategy to create Canadian jobs. Until that happens, at best we will be tinkering at the margins.

Opposition Motion—Employment Insurance Program

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of our NDP motion to fix Canada's employment insurance system and to help those Canadians who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

The House has only been in session for one week. I rose in question period every single day in that week to hold the government to account for the consequences of the draconian changes to Canada's EI system. We raise these issues to throw the spotlight on the government's failure to address the needs of Canadians, but frankly we also do it in the hopes that the evidence we bring to bear will get the government to reconsider its direction.

Certainly, our efforts have worked in the past, even with the Conservative government. After months of raising questions in the House, the government finally backtracked on the F-35, reversed itself with respect to the export of asbestos and of course, most infamously, we were even able to force the Conservatives to concede that there really was a recession in 2009 and to invest in infrastructure renewal. Even with EI, we saw a partial reversal by the minister when she conceded we were right about the punitive impact of her changes to the working while on claim program. Truthfully though, I am less optimistic this time around. Why? It is because the chasm between the reality faced by unemployed Canadians and the minister's fiction about that reality is widening every day and I do not think that is happening by accident.

Let me just give two quick examples to illustrate the point. To justify the government's agenda of change with respect to employment insurance, Conservative members insist on saying that there are thousands of jobs going unfilled in Canada because the unemployed do not want to work. That is simply not the case and the government knows it is utter nonsense. Statistics Canada has shown that there are five unemployed workers for every reported job vacancy in Canada. In Atlantic Canada there are as many as ten unemployed workers for every job that is available. Clearly, the real issue is the government's abysmal record on job creation, not the desire of Canadians to work. What an inconvenient truth. No wonder the Conservatives are continuously loading the dice against Statistics Canada's ability to do its job effectively.

From that overarching myth, let me give another example of Orwellian doublespeak by the government. On Friday, I called on the government to come clean on the new quotas that the minister has given to her staff for recovering money from EI recipients. She is demanding $150 million a year. The minister denied it vehemently, saying there was no such quota, but outside the House she later conceded that there are indeed objectives to that effect. How can we in the opposition, and more importantly, how can Canadians have a fruitful discussion with the government about the devastating impact of its changes when the government so steadfastly refuses to be honest? I understand spin but the government has taken that notion to a level that is completely unacceptable.

Members may remember Stephen Colbert's term “truthiness”. Well, we have it here in spades. Truthiness is what one wants the facts to be as opposed to what the facts are, what feels like the right answer as opposed to what reality will support. That kind of truthiness is a huge threat to our democracy because the legitimacy of democratic governance relies on an informed citizenry.

Let us try to turn the tide and talk about the challenges facing EI recipients in a realistic way. Let us look at the changes the government has introduced since its spring budget last year and see if we can work our way to a consensus about what needs to be done to reverse the damage. I am not overly optimistic but Canadians depend on us to give it our very best shot.

Throughout the recession the Conservatives largely left the existing EI program in place and in this new spirit of hope for co-operation I will even give them credit for adding several EI related stimulus programs to their economic action plans in 2008 and 2009. However, that was then and this is now.

Despite the fact that the economic recovery is far from complete, the Conservatives are now tightening the screws by making eligibility requirements even stricter so as to further limit access to EI, and by limiting the EI appeals process. These punitive reforms cater to negative stereotypes about EI recipients and ignore the realities of regional labour markets and seasonal industries. They will hurt both workers and communities.

Let us look at the facts. It is a fact that fewer unemployed Canadians will receive EI under these new rules. The government estimates that the changes will lead to 8,000 claimants being denied benefits, amounting to $30 million a year. It is a fact that unemployed Canadians will now be forced to accept lower wage jobs, paying up to 30% less than their previous job. This will drive down wages for all Canadians. It is a fact that valuable skills will now go unused. A skilled tradesperson or teacher on EI will now be pressured to accept a different, often lower skilled job. It is a fact that workers in seasonal industries will be particularly hard hit, since frequent claimants are the most targeted under the Conservatives' reforms.

Clearly, this is an ideological attack on workers. If the government were serious about connecting Canadians with jobs, its agenda would not be focused on tightening EI, but rather it would be focused on the urgent need to create jobs.

The real problem in Canada is that there are too few jobs. Further punishing the innocent victims of Canada's economic turmoil does nothing to right the ship. On the contrary, it adds to the decline of the thriving families and communities whose purchasing power drives local economies. If the government wanted to help workers, then it would be investing in training and apprenticeship programs that would train unemployed and young workers for available jobs. It could have adopted my Bill C-201, which would help tradespeople and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they could secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their homes.

Those would be concrete steps in the right direction for connecting people with jobs. However, by focusing on cuts to EI instead, the government is simply laying the groundwork for employers to bring in migrant workers and pay them less than the prevailing wage. Am I surprised by all of this? Of course not.

Members will remember the Prime Minister's comments, in 1997, when he told the American Council for National Policy that, “In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don’t feel particularly bad for many of these people”. Not to be outdone, his colleague, the Conservative member for South Shore—St. Margaret's later called unemployed Canadians “no-good bastards”. The minister is on the record saying that she does not want “to make it lucrative for them to stay home”.

Clearly, Canadians cannot trust the Conservatives on this file. The Liberals pioneered the approach of attacking the unemployed, making EI less accessible and raiding the EI fund to the tune of $54 billion. Only New Democrats have consistently fought on the side of workers. We know and believe that employment insurance is not a government benefit. It is paid for by workers and employers. Canadians pay EI premiums in good faith so that EI will be there for them in times of unemployment.

The reason my colleagues and I brought forward today's motion is to protect that sacred trust from governments' repeated attacks. We will roll back the callous Conservative cuts and we will continue to work with labour, business, provinces and territories to find longer-term solutions to help Canadians find jobs, without treating unemployed workers as the problem.

I invite the Conservatives to reconsider their approach and to support our motion. There is no shame in making a mistake. The shame lies only in the refusal to acknowledge it and correct it.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Mr. Smillie, I want to take you up on a couple points that you made. You talked about the mobility of the construction workforce, more specifically how to get people where the work is. That's a very good question. I'm having that problem in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador, in terms of how to get people to jobs in remote areas.

I have a specific question about a private member's bill, Bill C-201, which is before the House of Commons. Are you familiar with it?

[Hoang Mai, NDP, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

I have a question for the building and construction trades.

You talked about Bill C-201, which was put forward by one of my colleagues. However, I was just wondering if that really addresses the issues you raised in terms of jobs and transferability.

[Robert Blakely, Director, Canadian Affairs, Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, Canadian Office]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Bob Blakely, and I am privileged to represent the men and women who build and maintain Canada.

With me today is Mr. David Wade from the Newfoundland and Labrador building and construction trades.

We're in an industry that employs over a million Canadians but has no permanent jobs. For every construction job that happens in Canada, the day you are hired on, you are one day closer to being laid off. Unlike others who are here with an “ask”, I am here to give you money.

I have a scheme that will help meet a number of challenges the Government of Canada faces and get Canadians with skills from one area to another in this country. If you look at the labour market information available, you will find that areas like Newfoundland and Labrador will face significant labour shortages from now until 2014. Ontario will be flat until 2015. Alberta, Nova Scotia, and Quebec need numbers of workers.

In a transitory business, we need to be able to move people from one place to another in the country. According to some of the studies that have been done, 70% of all construction workers move, either within the province or within the country, in order to access work during their careers. What we are proposing is a tax credit program that would allow workers who fall within areas where skills are required to be able to claim a tax credit for money they spend moving from one part of the country to another. Workers benefit by getting a reduction in their temporary relocation costs. Employers will benefit from having access to a much larger pool of workers. The Government of Canada will benefit. If you look at the investment scheme described in the materials, you'll see that after an initial short-term investment, the Government of Canada will recover money at a rate of about five to one.

We have a number of suggestions as to how you could set up a pilot project and monitor it. I'm not going to waste a lot of time going through that. Suffice it to say, we're asking here for something that will help construction workers move from one part of the country to another. Newfoundland, which has been a traditional exporter of people, is going to be an importer of people over the next three or four years.

We're also asking for some tax fairness here. If, instead of being construction workers, we were engineers or architects or superintendents who incorporated ourselves as one-person companies, we would be able to write off our travel expenses at 100¢ on the dollar. We can't do that as working guys.

Teamsters, who are long-haul truckers and who move across the country, can write off their expenses. We're asking for a tax credit that would help move people, who we desperately need, from one part of the country to another. I know Mr. Jean can tell you that in Fort McMurray they need people.

If you look at the background, at how long we've been talking about this, in 2008 the standing committee on human resources and social development talked about creating some sort of relocation assistance to help people who move from place to place. There is a private member's bill that has been introduced in the last three parliaments, which now is Bill C-201, introduced by Chris Charlton from Hamilton Mountain. It talks about how we could assist people with skills to move.

The time has come. The baby boomer generation, which no one expected was ever going to retire, is going to retire. We have spaces for nearly 2,500 people to enter the construction industry in the next five years, and another 163,000 people in the five years after that. It's an industry that is going to change. If we have trained people all across the country, we need to be able to move them.

We are talking about a way the Government of Canada can lever its investment and have a worker in Corner Brook work in Alberta for a very low cost, instead of being on unemployment insurance at home because he can't afford to travel.

That's my pitch. Thank you.

Income Tax Act

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-201, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel and accommodation deduction for tradespersons).

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to reintroduce this bill on behalf of Canada's building and construction trades as well as their indentured apprentices for the third time since I was first elected.

The building and construction trades have been lobbying for this bill for over 30 years and it continues to be one of the key priorities at each and every one of their legislative conferences.

In every Parliament the government has made vague promises of progress to come, then each Parliament ends without concrete action. The time to rectify that situation is now.

The ask is simple: allow tradespersons and apprentices to deduct travel and accommodation expenses from their taxable income so that they can secure and maintain employment at a construction site that is more than 80 kilometres away from their home.

At a time when some regions of the country suffer from high unemployment while others suffer from temporary skilled labour shortages, this bill offers a solution to both. Best of all, it is revenue neutral for the government because the cost associated with the income tax cut is more than made up by the savings in employment insurance.

Now that the Conservatives have a majority in the House of Commons there are no more excuses. The government can and must support this bill and act unequivocally to support Canada's building and construction trades.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)