Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening to debate Bill C‑241, an act to amend the Income Tax Act with regard to deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons.
Bill C‑241, which is sponsored by the member from the Ontario riding of Essex, is at third reading stage. It seeks to amend “the Income Tax Act to allow tradespersons and indentured apprentices to deduct from their income amounts expended for travelling where they were employed in a construction activity at a job site that is located at least 120 km away from their ordinary place of residence.”
From the outset, I want to say that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of this small but extremely worthwhile initiative. In my opinion, most members agree on this bill. We could settle this this evening by taking a vote by a show of hands. Honestly, I find this a bit tough from a procedural perspective. We know that everyone will vote in favour of the bill, but there is a process to follow, even though we know the outcome will be the same at the end of it.
The tax benefit being introduced by Bill C‑241 responds to a request made by Canada's Building Trades Unions, which represent more than half a million construction workers across the country. These people work in more than 60 trades and professions and generate 6% of Canada's GDP. That is significant.
As we know, in Quebec, the construction industry is an extremely important sector of activity. We are talking about investments of nearly $53 million in 2019. We are also talking about 264,600 direct jobs generated per month, on average, or one out of every 20 jobs in Quebec.
In Canada, salespeople, professionals and various other workers in different sectors can already claim a tax deduction for the cost of their travel, meals and accommodation. I believe and the Bloc believes that it stands to reason that these expenses could be claimed by skilled workers whose job sites are far from their primary residence. It is simply a question of fairness.
The scope of Bill C-241 is essentially fiscal, but it is also economic, because it addresses labour shortages and, by extension, inflation. When expenses are not covered by the employer, workers must cover them themselves. With a family to support, additional expenses for travel can obviously become quite burdensome and undermine a worker's incentive to accept certain contracts from time to time.
Inflation was 6.8% in 2022, the highest since 1982. In 1982 it was 10.9%. We need only think of the extreme volatility of gas prices. The price of a litre of gas in Quebec last June was $2.20, enough to bankrupt any family that has to travel a lot for work.
As I was saying, the tax deduction introduced by Bill C-241 is a concrete and effective measure to encourage the mobility of workers in the construction sector. It is an incentive to return to work. We believe that.
According to a recent poll by Canada's Building Trades Unions, 75% of skilled trades workers say that a tax deduction will give them access to more job opportunities.
Given the current inflation, this is the right time to bring in this tax deduction that will help alleviate the financial burden for tradespeople. This tax incentive promises to provide a solution to the labour shortage, and therefore reduce Quebeckers' and Canadians' dependence on government programs such as employment insurance.
Calculations have shown that Bill C-241 could save the federal government approximately $347 million.
I want to make it clear that we are not reinventing the wheel with Bill C‑241. Other countries, such as the United States, have had a similar tax deduction for quite some time. In short, it is a targeted, relevant and timely measure that has been proven to work on the other side of the border. It would be difficult for all parties here in the House to oppose this bill.
I made a correlation earlier between the tax deduction proposed in Bill C‑241, the job shortage and inflation. The Bloc Québécois members believe that addressing the labour shortage will help ease the inflation that is increasingly affecting and worrying our constituents.
The pandemic forced many people out of the workforce for health reasons and exacerbated the labour shortage in some sectors, including the construction trades. This shortage is hindering the economic recovery, because it results in forced closures, lost contracts, significantly reduced investment in our businesses and overworked employees.
Today's inflation stems in part from an imbalance between supply and demand: Supply is limited because of the labour shortage, but demand is stable and growing. Reducing the labour shortage in a specific sector, as Bill C‑241 seeks to do, could potentially fix the imbalance between supply and demand, in addition to reducing inflation as I was saying earlier.
Consequently, in my opinion, it was ill-advised and counterproductive of the Liberal government to try to create one million jobs in budget 2021 without including effective mechanisms to deal with the labour shortage.
The Bloc Québécois has been taking the labour shortage seriously for a long time now. During the last election campaign, we proposed plenty of solutions: recognizing experienced workers; transferring the temporary foreign workers program to Quebec; investing in research and development; investing in the digital transformation; and creating tax credits for new graduates who move to the regions for work.
In summary, the Bloc Québécois has always been an ally of tradespersons who make an essential and invaluable contribution to Quebec's economic prosperity. Bill C‑241 introduces a targeted and appropriate tax measure that will ease the financial burden of tradespersons while addressing the labour shortage and inflation.
For all of these reasons, once again, the Bloc Québécois will support Bill C‑241.
