Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-211, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, relating to travel expenses for a motor vehicle used by a forestry worker.
The bill introduced by the hon. member for Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques is an initiative that I also feel strongly about. The bill would allow forestry workers, who have to travel long distances in a motor vehicle between their place of residence and their workplace, to benefit from a reasonable tax deduction, which, in this case, I find adequate.
In summary, Bill C-211 would allow a forestry worker, under certain conditions, to deduct from his income the interest paid on money borrowed to acquire the motor vehicle.
Also, a forestry worker would be able to deduct from his income expenses related to the wear and tear of the motor vehicle. This bill means a lot to forestry workers.
Currently, Revenue Canada considers the use of such a motor vehicle as a use for personal reasons by forestry workers who have to travel long distances to get to their workplace. Consequently, these workers cannot claim travel expenses from their residence to the logging area. What this means is that Revenue Canada does not consider that these workers need to travel to work.
If we look at forestry workers, and this is where I disagree with my colleague from the Alliance, there is a major difference, and that is what my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois is trying to point out with his bill.
Forestry workers do not work all year round, they are seasonal workers. When spring comes around, they have to contract loans. I think it is one of the only Canadian industries where people have to buy their own tools, such as chain saws, that cost $850 plus tax.
Each year, the forestry worker, the logger who goes off to the logging area has to buy a new saw. That costs money. Unlike other workers, he does not work all year round. The seasonal worker, the logger has to survive on employment insurance for part of the year, at least six months. He has to make do with 50% of his income because of the cuts Liberals made in 1996. EI benefits have been slashed by half. These workers are punished left, right and center.
That is why I feel I have to support the bill introduced by my colleague from the Bloc, because these workers deserve a break. Each spring, these workers have to fork out a lot of money after spending the winter on employment insurance, because they cannot log all winter long. They end up with debts after spending the winter on employment insurance.
That is why I am going to support this bill. It is all well and good for the Canadian Alliance to say that all Canadians must be treated equally, but in the meantime, we must take into account the plight of our forestry workers. According to Alliance members, Canadians should not have to pay any taxes or everyone will want to move to the United States. I will say one thing. I would rather live here, in Canada, the best country in the world, than in the United States, where they have a two tier health care system. They may pay less taxes, but going to the hospital can easily cost $10,000. In my opinion, that is a form of taxation.
In my riding of Acadie—Bathurst, the forest industry is important. Nearly half the people are seasonal workers, either in fisheries or forestry. These jobs are important for our region.
As I said, and I will repeat it because apparently before people get it into their heads, it must repeated 28 times: in my riding, the forestry worker who is lucky to work 15 or 20 weeks ends up unemployed the rest of the year, because there are no jobs. He is not a seasonal worker, but he works in a seasonal sector. He ends up with half an income for the rest of the season and in the spring, he must buy a chain saw even if he would appreciate getting a little tax break then. With the little tax break that he gets, which is a tax refund, he has to buy a chain saw in order to go to work.
The purpose of this bill is to help this industry and its workers, because they are unique. We need those forestry workers. People living in big cities, whether it is Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto or Vancouver, are happy to get 2x4s from my region, from Kamouraska, Rivière-du-Loup, the Gaspé Peninsula, northern Ontario and northern British Columbia.
I am sure that the hon. member opposite remembers the visit we made to loggers in the Prince George area. This is not an easy job, because we cannot bring the forest into the city. Loggers have to go into the forest, miles away from home; they have to travel and leave their family behind for weeks. When they come back on Friday night for the weekend, they are exhausted. They are home Saturday, and on Sunday, they go back to the logging camp. That is what loggers do.
I think that the government could recognize their work by giving them some tax relief, such as the one proposed by my hon. colleague in his private bill. I think this is the best thing to do.
The Alliance members come from a region where there are many loggers, but they are not prepared to give a break to a specific group like this one. However, they want to have a tax, what they call the flat tax, to give a break to all the millionaires in this country and all the people who make over $100,000 a year, giving them a tax cut, so that they do not have to pay as much tax.
But they are not prepared to do anything in support of the forestry workers, not prepared to treat them as special workers. Yet these workers are special, because they are the ones who go out in the woods to cut down our natural resources, which provide the whole country with wood, with 2x4s, with paper and what have you. The piece of paper I am holding starts in the forest. The forestry workers are the ones who cut down the raw material that it is made from.
The only thing they are asking for is recognition. Very often people say “Oh, he's just a forestry worker, that's all”. As if these workers were not part of society. That is how they feel sometimes.
It is not enough that many of their jobs in the bush have been lost to mechanization, now gas costs are making it extremely expensive to get to their jobs.
In my opinion it would be just the honourable thing to do if parliament were to say “Now we are finally paying attention to our forestry workers”.
Most of the members of this House have such workers within their ridings, or their fathers or brothers were forestry workers. I think giving them a little hand up is nothing more than the fair and honourable thing to do.
Before closing, I will just quickly repeat a few points. We must keep in mind that the forestry workers cannot control wood quotas. They are therefore forced to be seasonal workers. For a large chunk of the year, six months I would say, they are forced onto employment insurance, at 50% of what they were earning.
I strongly recommend that the government members vote in favour of Bill C-211 in order to give our forestry workers the opportunity to purchase chainsaws and get to work providing our country with a resource.