Essentially the Income Tax Act provides that for missions that are considered to be high-risk, where Canadian Forces members or police officers are on missions that are considered high-risk, the income they earn on those missions is exempt from tax.
The exemption automatically applies to level 3 and level 4 missions. There was a recognition that certain types of level 2 missions are very similar in characteristic to lower level 3 missions, so they have a high-risk score and should be eligible for some tax relief.
The way the process worked was that level 2 types of missions could be prescribed. That process took quite some time and involved a significant delay, often, in the time between when a Canadian Forces member was on a mission and when they actually received the tax relief. The proposal in the bill is to expedite that process, but also to more closely reflect the fact that missions that are close to high-risk—essentially those missions that are 2.0 to 2.5—are eligible for the tax relief, and that the lower-level risk missions are not eligible.