Good morning Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to meet with you to tell our story.
Travailleurs Autonomes Québec is an organization that was created in Quebec for the purpose of representing self-employed workers. It represents just over 5,500 self-employed Quebec workers, including people in the heavy transportation industry, distributors, IT workers, real estate agents and a number of owners in the taxi industry. Our organization is associated with the Syndicat des Métallos (United Steelworkers) and with the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the FTQ.
One of the mandates of our organization is to represent self-employed workers before the appropriate authorities and to develop the tools that they require. For example, concerning the problem with Revenu Québec, we called on accountants, tax experts and lawyers to have them study this topic as a whole.
We also conducted an in-depth analysis. We asked our legal counsel to study the issue and tell us how we could make improvements in a simple fashion. Amending the entire Income Tax Act could be very complex. We thus asked solicitor Leblanc to compile a document. He will be presenting it on behalf of the Travailleurs Autonomes Québec.
That concludes my presentation. Thank you.