Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to speak to this bill on mechanics tools. I do appreciate the Bloc member bringing this forward.
Bill C-205 is a carbon copy of the private member's bill that I put forth in the last parliament, Bill C-366. During that process, I received over 7,000 letters from mechanics across the country on that bill. I am sure the Bloc member has no doubt received thousands of letters from people across the country in response to his bill.
The only difference in the Bloc bill from the bill that I presented in the last parliament is the price for individual tools that are purchased by the mechanic. The amount has been increased from the $200 that I had recommended. If the mechanic's tool is below $200 the full cost can be deducted. If it is above $200 it will be depreciated and a capital cost allowance will be deducted for income taxes purposes. That is the only change. It is an excellent bill and I sincerely thank the Bloc member for bringing it forward again.
I was very pleased that this time the bill has been made votable. When I presented the same bill to the committee, it unfortunately did not allow the bill to be voted on in the House. I believe that every private member's bill that comes before the House should be votable, particularly a practical bill like this.
The purpose of this bill is to allow mechanics to deduct the cost of their tools on the condition that the tools are a requirement of their employment.
The mechanic has to buy his own tools and then bring them to his place of employment. If tools are lost or damaged, he has to replace them from his own pocketbook.
At the present time mechanics have an incredibly large cost, often $15,000 to $30,000 in tools, which they have to pay for with after tax dollars, and yet it is a requirement of employment that the mechanics have those tools to use them on the job.
It is very important that this issue be dealt with. I would assume that this time it will have the full support of every party in the House.
The costs I am talking about are the costs of maintaining the tools, renting the tools, in cases where the mechanic chooses to rent, and insurance costs, because of course with the high value involved the loss of the tools would be devastating. It would be quite devastating to lose $30,000 worth of tools.
The mechanic could also deduct the cost of the insurance. The mechanic would be allowed to claim capital cost allowance on tools over $250 and, therefore, over time deduct the full cost of the tools for income tax purposes. That is the purpose of the bill.
When I introduced Bill C-366 I received over 7,000 letters from mechanics across the country. On this bill, in spite of the fact that it is not my bill, I have received hundreds and hundreds more letters. We have not even counted them yet, although I do appreciate the mechanics and the owners of the businesses for sending the letters to me. I know that copies of the letters have been sent to the finance minister. The finance minister has to understand how important it is that he deal with the situation.
During the debate on Bill C-366 members of all political parties supported the bill except the Liberals. The parliamentary secretary to the minister of finance at that time came up with a whole list of excuses for not supporting the bill. I would suggest that they were excuses.
I will go through what the parliamentary secretary said and I will respond to what I consider to be excuses in most cases. First, I want to say a little about what some MPs from all of the political parties said about this bill and what they are saying about the Bloc member's bill which is now before the House.
A Bloc MP said “I think this bill is good for the economy and for the creation of jobs. The Bloc Quebecois and myself support the measures proposed in this bill”.
A member of the NDP from Saskatchewan said “I want to congratulate the member for Lakeland for bringing this legislation forward and tell him and members of the House that the New Democratic Party fully supports this concept and we will be supporting this bill”.
A member of the Progressive Conservative Party from Manitoba said “I would like to pass my thanks on to the member for Lakeland who has once again brought forward a private member's bill to deal with what I consider to be an injustice and an inequality that has been around for too long”. I think it is a fair comment that this injustice has been around for too long.
Reform MPs fully supported the bill. The member for Battlefords—Lloydminster and the member for Elk Island indicated that the bill was long overdue.
Then we come to the government side, the Liberals. The parliamentary secretary came up with numerous excuses, and I want to go through some of the key ones. He said “Mechanics are not the only occupation that incur substantial expenses as a requirement of employment”. I agree with that. That statement is correct. Farmers and other businessmen, as well as artists, musicians and chainsaw operators incur substantial expenses as a requirement of employment.
Farmers, of course, are business people and they are handled differently, but artists, musicians, chainsaw operators and others are employees in many cases who are allowed to deduct the cost of the tools of their trade. I believe that is a bogus issue which the parliamentary secretary brought forward.
The parliamentary secretary also said “This private member's bill would also provide tax relief to all mechanics, irrespective of the size of their expenditures, instead of targeting relief to those incurring extraordinary expenses”.
I would suggest that, indeed, that is an odd statement. Farmers and other business people, as well as the others I have mentioned, can claim their expenses no matter how large they are. That is not a criterion that is used to judge whether any of these other people can write something off for tax purposes. That was a very odd statement.
He also said “Provisions would need to be developed to ensure that tax relief was provided only for those items genuinely required as a condition of employment and not for those purchased for personal use”. That is true. That is a fair enough statement, but throughout all our tax system, for anyone claiming, the same is true. In other words, the onus is on the person making the claim to ensure that he or she is only claiming expenses which are allowed under the act. Taxpayers are trusted to do that. We have routine audits and we have special audits to check to ensure that people are being honest. Again, this was another bogus excuse.
The parliamentary secretary made several other, what I would consider to be, excuses and I do not believe that any one of them could not be dealt with by the government if it believed it was something that should be done.
The parliamentary secretary at the time, and I hear the same thing again from across the floor, said that somehow, and for different reasons, the deduction of the cost of purchasing, owning and maintaining a line of tools could not be done for several reasons. It is interesting that this government, which has raised taxes every year over the past seven years, since 1993—