Mr. Speaker, I have an important petition to present to the House this afternoon involving some 300 Saskatchewan women whose husbands were killed on the job prior to 1985. They were denied workers compensation benefits for a period of 14 years.
After the provincial government rectified the problem in 1999 with a one time tax free compensation payment of $80,000, the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency clawed back federal income tested program benefits for many of the women including old age security. This effectively reduced the one time payment by about $5,000.
The petitioners call on parliament to request that the federal government take appropriate measures immediately to ensure the CCRA does not consider the one time payment as income for the 1999 tax year and issue a remission order.