Mr. Speaker, waiters and waitresses in New Brunswick have launched an educational campaign in hopes of teaching both levels of government about tips.
Most waitresses and waiters are mainly minimum wage employees and rely on tips to make ends meet. Over 80 per cent of them are women. A high percentage of them are single parents. Many of them have a university degree with no other job opportunities.
Revenue Canada considers their tips to be taxable income and use it to calculate eligible child tax benefits and GST rebates. However, they cannot use these tips to claim UI benefits, workers' compensation, Canada pension, bank loans, nor is it added to calculate their RRSP allowable contribution. There seems to be some inequities when a government considers tips as income for tax purposes but does not consider tips for benefit purposes.
I urge the government to consider changes to enable waiters and waitresses to fully benefit from their tips and the inequity can be corrected.