Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians who work abroad in natural resource industries benefit from the federal overseas tax credit. In return for spending six months of the year away from their families and working often under very difficult conditions, these Canadian workers have had their annual tax liabilities reduced by the credit.
Now as reported by Alberta Report magazine, Revenue Canada has decided to retroactively disallow the overseas tax credit to those Canadian workers employed by U.S. parented companies. In some cases this disallowance may extend back three years. This move will be an annoyance to the companies in question but it will do great harm to hundreds of ordinary Canadian workers, most of them Albertans.
I am told that the unforeseen tax bill of up to $50,000 will cause some of them to lose their homes. This is a shameful way for the Minister of National Revenue to accomplish his goal of closing a so-called tax loophole.