The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
Chris Lewis Conservative
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
Third reading (Senate), as of Nov. 7, 2024
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This is from the published bill.
This enactment amends 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.
All sorts of information on this bill is available at LEGISinfo, an excellent resource from the Library of Parliament. You can also read the full text of the bill.
The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons), as reported (without amendment) from the committee.
The Speaker Anthony Rota
There being no motions at report stage, the House will now proceed, without debate, to the putting of the question of the motion to concur in the bill at report stage.
The Speaker Anthony Rota
If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
An hon. member
On division.
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
moved that the bill be read a third time and passed.
Mr. Speaker, what a great way to start a Monday morning. The House has just allowed me to speak to something that is very near and dear to my heart. I spent a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears on this. It has been a journey. I think it was back in March when I first spoke to Bill C-241, my private member's bill.
I want to thank the folks of Essex who have allowed me the opportunity to stand in the House and represent them—
The Speaker Anthony Rota
I must interrupt the hon. member. There are problems with the interpretation.
I am told that it is now fixed.
The hon. member for Essex may continue his speech.
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, in all sincerity, every day when I step into the House, it is like stepping onto the ice in the seventh game of the Stanley Cup series. I just want to thank the folks of Essex. I want to, once again, thank Tomi Hulkkonnen from the Carpenters Union and Karl Lovett from IBEW for helping me script the bill and for giving me guidance and understanding of what it really means in support for our skilled trades folks.
I also want to take the opportunity to thank the member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, who seconded this bill and who will be speaking to it later on.
Before I dive into the bill, my dearest condolences to the Gaffan family back in Kingsville. Jim Gaffan was the mayor of Kingsville for a long time. He passed away just a couple of weeks ago. He was a staple in the community as a local barber. If people needed to know something, they would go to Gaffan's Barber Shop. Mr. Gaffan was a man whom I very much looked up to. He was a man of the people, and I hope to at least bring some of his happiness forward. Again, my condolences to his family.
Bill C-241 is an act to amend the Income Tax Act with respect to deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons. As I have said before, I like to call it the “fair travelling tradespersons bill”. It went to committee. I understand we did not break a record, but I believe it to be true that we were very close to breaking one. Today, I get 15 minutes to speak, but in committee it passed in 17 minutes. Therefore, if I draw this out for two more minutes, somehow we probably would have broken a record.
The reason is that there were no amendments to the bill. This is such a simple bill. The only frustrating thing about this is that because it is so simple, because it is the right thing to do and because it has the support of the majority of the House, I am talking 15 more minutes, 15 more minutes that we are not looking out for our skilled tradespersons.
I was caught at the Billy Bishop Airport for an extended four hours on Thursday night on the way home. I ran into a young man named Colin. He lives in the Windsor area and travels to southern Alberta for work because he can make a lot more money in the skilled trades to feed his family back in Windsor. I asked him how long he had been gone for. He said it had been 30 days and he was excited to get home to see his young daughter. I said, “Wow, you had to work for 30 days.” He said, no, that he worked for 10 days, then he was off for two, then he worked for 10 days and was off again for two days.
I realized it is a long way to travel, but I asked him if he was able to get home to see his daughter. He would have loved to have gotten home to see his daughter, but he could not afford the cost of the flights. When he would go home after 30 days, the money for that flight was money that would pay for her diapers, her pablum, her medicines like Tylenol. He said that Facetime was as good as I got.
If that real story does not tear at the heartstrings of each and every member of the House and to understand why Bill C-241 would be so impactful for our skilled tradespersons who travel across the country to build our infrastructure, quite frankly, I do not know what would.
If that story does not get the House, maybe this one will. I was again at Billy Bishop Airport around October or November of last year. I ran into a gentleman named Andrew. He works in the mines in Timmins. He asked me for a picture with him. I do not know why. My wife does not even want pictures with me. I had a good conversation with this gentleman. He does not have a family but he has a girlfriend. He actually Facetimed his girlfriend while I was there and introduced me as her member of Parliament. I did not think too much about it. Shame on me
When I arrived at Billy Bishop Airport to fly back to the House for the first week, a young woman came up to me and said my name. I asked her how she was. She wanted to thank me for my private member's bill, which she hoped would go through. She then asked me if I knew who she was. I told her she looked familiar but I was not too sure. That is when she told me she was Andrew's girlfriend and that she was on her way to Timmins. I remembered that I had taken a picture with him. I asked her if Andrew could not get home and she said that it would cost him too much so she decided to go see him.
These are the real stories of the ones who we expect to build our roads and energy system, to turn our economy and get that engine moving again to make our country green. They are the very ones who sacrifice so much, but we forget about their loved ones. If we want to really incentivize our skilled trades, it is as simple as giving them the opportunity to be back with their loved ones.
We continue to talk about the lack of homes or the shortage of them across our country. We know that the cost of a house is out of this world, but that is purely because we do not have enough. I am quite sure that all 338 members of the House have heard this time and again from their business owners, that if we gave them more people, they would put out twice as much product. Quite frankly, they do not have the people.
We are far past the stigma of being in the skilled trades. We now understand that it is not only okay to be a plumber, a boiler maker, an ironworker or an electrical worker but it is a fantastic living that brings home a lot of money for families and puts tons of food on the tables of Canadian families. Now that we are past that the next question is how we get those people to the jobs. How do we give the support to those folks to get them to those jobs?
Right before Christmas, I travelled to Nova Scotia. I met with people from CANS, the Construction Association of Nova Scotia. They said to me that to build roads and hospitals, all these projects, they needed people. They said that for the first time Nova Scotia was not exporting its folks; it needed to import skilled trades. I hear this across the country. They said that my private member's bill, Bill C-241, which is not mine but the people's bill, would get people to the right place at the right time.
I think about Windsor. I think about the Gordie Howe International Bridge and the amazing workforce that is building that bridge. At the same time, a $5-billion battery plant is being built in Windsor. As such, when I met with representatives of the IBEW in Windsor, they said that they would need thousands of people in Windsor to build this plant, let alone the bridge.
The point is that this is as simple as doing what each and every one of us talks about all the time: building our economy, building our infrastructure and being fair.
Recently, I met with representatives from WEST, which I had never heard of before. It does some pretty unique and amazing work based in Windsor. It trains mostly young women, a lot of them immigrants, on skilled trades. By the way, it is the only organization of its kind in Canada. I asked where they go once they are trained, and they said that they try to find them a job locally. I said it cannot be hard to find them a job locally. They said it is certainly not hard to find them a job locally, but many of them have roots and family in other parts of Canada that they want to go to, so if the job is here, they cannot be with their family. Kudos to WEST for doing what it is doing and recognizing the potential of our immigrants, specifically women.
I really want to stay bipartisan here, because I believe that through working together in the House we can do something really special and unique. I want to thank the Bloc Québécois and the New Democratic Party at committee for supporting this bill going forward.
I realize that there has been a tax deduction for mobility expenses by the Liberal Party for $4,000. I have heard that time and time again, and it is a great start. However, as I mentioned before, a businessperson can jump on a plane in Windsor and fly back and forth to Calgary, Vancouver or St. John's, Newfoundland as many times as they want and write off those expenses, such as hotels, meals and travel. To suggest that a skilled tradesperson can write off only $4,000 of travel expenses for maybe a couple of months' worth of work is putting a price on the heads of those in our skilled trades that is totally unacceptable and certainly does not go far enough.
In closing, this is a common-sense bill for the hard-working, common people. It has been a year-long journey, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, and I now realize the number of people whose lives and families would be impacted by this bill. It is so far-reaching and so unique. Other parties have introduced very similar legislation in the past, and now is the time to finally get it done. Let us bring it home. Let us expedite this process so that we can get the proper folks at the proper place fairly.
I will end this speech the way I ended my last one, because I truly believe it in my heart of hearts: If it is good enough for members of Parliament to write off their travel expenses, their apartments and their meals, then it better darn well be good enough for our skilled trades folks.
Income Tax ActPrivate Members' Business
February 13th, 2023 / 11:20 a.m.
Kingston and the Islands Ontario
Liberal
Mark Gerretsen LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)
Mr. Speaker, I am sure the member knows that there was a very similar budget item in the budget implementation act of 2022, where measures very similar to what he is proposing in the bill were addressed. I am wondering if he can tell us how the bill differs from what was in the budget implementation act.
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, it differs in a couple of ways. If we look at the kilometres and the distance some have to travel, I believe that in the budget implementation act it is 150 kilometres, but in this bill it would be 120 kilometres. More than that, what I ended my speech with was quite simply that $4,000 puts a price on the heads of those in the skilled trades. This bill has no limit, so the more they work, the more money our skilled trades are putting back into our economy, and we are not handcuffing these same folks from going to work.
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Essex for his work. He has introduced a really interesting bill, and, as he pointed out in his speech, the Bloc Québécois has decided to support it.
I want to acknowledge his work in particular because it is not often that the Conservatives side with workers. I think it is important to highlight it when it does happen.
Other than this idea of helping our tradespeople with their travel expenses, I would like to know whether the Conservatives have any other ideas to help workers. It is important that the legislation we pass help those who need defending in Parliament, the ordinary people. We need to help working people, not big business and those who are lining their pockets and are already privileged in our society.
I would like to know what ideas the Conservatives are going to come up with next to support the people that we need to support, those who are not the privileged.
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his support. I remember him speaking to this bill back in March.
In terms of fresh ideas, if I was so lucky as to have another private member's bill, with the next one I would make darn sure that the folks coming in from overseas, like Finland, who have these skilled trades and who are literally stuck in our system, are allowed into Canada to join our skilled labour force. That is one idea. We have lots of folks from other countries who have been stuck in the system for years. Let us give the support to our immigration folks and get these skilled trades into Canada. That would be the next one.
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Mr. Speaker, we are grateful to see this bill come forward. Of course, as the member knows, New Democrats have been fighting this injustice that targets tradespeople and apprentices on deducting their travel expenses for many years. In fact, we have tabled this bill five times. This is a no-brainer. I am surprised that the member did not tell Colin, whom he met at the airport, that the Conservatives actually voted against this bill when it came up for a vote in 2013.
Why have the Conservatives suddenly had a change of heart? Now they support those in the trades and apprentices in ensuring that they get fair treatment when it comes to tax deductions when travelling over 120 kilometres. Why has it taken them so long and why did they not support the bill when Chris Charlton tabled it and it was voted on in 2013?
Chris Lewis Conservative Essex, ON
Mr. Speaker, obviously I was not here in 2013, so I will not speak to that. What I will speak to is keeping my promise to Colin. I take no shame in not telling something to Colin. When this gets passed in this House, I will tell Colin that this House worked for him, to go home and hold his daughter.