Evidence of meeting #48 for Finance in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was volunteers.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ruth MacKenzie  President, Volunteer Canada
Conrad Sauvé  Conrad Sauvé, Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross
Malcolm Dunderdale  President and Chair, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (National) Inc.
Michael Buda  Acting Deputy Director, Policy, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
Yves Gingras  Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

5 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Thank you very much.

Does the Income Tax Act actually have a definition of “volunteer”?

5 p.m.

Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Yves Gingras

There is no definition of “volunteer”, but there is one of emergency service volunteers.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Oh, there's one for emergency service volunteers.

5:05 p.m.

Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Yves Gingras

Yes; for the current exemption, there is a definition.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

You don't happen to have that with you, do you?

5:05 p.m.

Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Yves Gingras

Well, it's very similar. I think the drafters used something--

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

They used the same thing.

5:05 p.m.

Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Yves Gingras

Yes, it's very much in line with this. It is stated in the Income Tax Act and has to be interpreted by the Canada Revenue Agency. Now, we know that the Canada Revenue Agency has only taken a view once about what that means; it was in a very specific case of an individual who asked if he could qualify or not, but CRA has never had to define.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

It hasn't been taken to court, then.

5:05 p.m.

Chief, Employment and Education, Personal Income Tax Division, Tax Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Yves Gingras

I am not aware that this was taken to court.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

The reason I want to see the mover of the bill at another meeting is that I want to ask that individual specific questions. I am going to ask you because you are here. Malcolm, you talked about not actually performing, but waiting, and that this might not count.

I'll use my own example. In the city of Burlington when the career guys are out on a call, the back-fill is volunteers in one central station in the city. I go to a volunteer appreciation event every year. I get complaints, even though I'm not on the city council any more, that they “never see any action”, in their view, because they're always back-filling--sitting there waiting in case there's another call. Often, in the vast majority.... Would you count that? Do we count that as time?

5:05 p.m.

President and Chair, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (National) Inc.

Malcolm Dunderdale

I would say so.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

You would count that as time.

5:05 p.m.

President and Chair, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (National) Inc.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

They've been called, even though they're not doing anything.

5:05 p.m.

President and Chair, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (National) Inc.

Malcolm Dunderdale

Yes. That's if they've been called specifically, but if they're just sitting there playing cards and they're just there for a visit, no.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

But if they're being called as volunteers from their homes or their workplaces to sit in the station, then that is an actual call, in your view.

5:05 p.m.

President and Chair, Canadian Coast Guard Auxiliary (National) Inc.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Okay.

The other one of interest to me here is auxiliary police. We have auxiliary police in Halton region. There's a good training program for them. There's no doubt about that. They do a lot of events in terms of crowd control and that kind of thing. I haven't heard, when I was on the regional council, of our auxiliary police actually getting involved in any police work or action.

My concern is that this bill is four or five paragraphs long. It doesn't define things well enough for us to say that this is good or bad. I'm not sure if you can do it through regulation.

Do you folks have any views of the definition of action for emergency service providers? I understand the training, because that gets them ready for it, but if they never actually get called to a fire, if they never actually perform police work other than traffic control--and I suppose that's police work of sorts, that and crowd control--do you not think the bill would be more effective if we had that kind of definition or some sort of description in it, or do you think that's virtually impossible?

Because you're from a different group altogether, Conrad, maybe you could answer.

5:05 p.m.

Conrad Sauvé, Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

Well, it's a little different in our case. They're not waiting in a centre to intervene, so that doesn't call for it. We're just emphasizing that we're increasing the training quite a bit and that the training should be part of that, but they're not waiting in a location, so it wouldn't be...unless they're intervening, really.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

Would it be better if the bill set it up that the supervision...? We think--and I believe you're right--that based on the type of work they do, the organizations probably have pretty good records of who has shown up and who hasn't.

I know that we ourselves would fire volunteers who didn't come for the training, because how could you put somebody's life at risk if they hadn't done the training properly and hadn't kept up? Those records, I believe, are ready. Should there be something here so that there is a decision-making process for the supervisor to say they've done the training and they've performed a service? I think we need something here to make sure this doesn't get abused, in a sense; I don't think it would be, but it has the potential to be.

5:05 p.m.

Conrad Sauvé, Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

In our case again, there's no intervention where there's no municipal agreement, in terms of defining.... So we don't have volunteers volunteering on their own.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

But if there's an emergency and the Red Cross gets called out, they do the on-the-ground work then, wherever they're called to, right?

5:10 p.m.

Conrad Sauvé, Secretary General and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Red Cross

Conrad Sauvé

Absolutely.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Mike Wallace Conservative Burlington, ON

To me, they've done the training, so they're prepared; they run through the simulations, so they continue to be prepared; and then when the call comes, they're ready to go and they do something. But in-between these times, even though they're volunteers and they're not in training, you wouldn't say that?