Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to debate the bill which has been sponsored by the hon. member for Lethbridge.
As everyone in the House is aware, the bill proposes a $3,000 tax deduction for emergency service volunteers. The proposed deduction would be claimed against income from all sources. More specifically, it would apply to those who have given more than 200 hours of volunteer service over the year.
I understand and appreciate the hon. member's intention. Canada's emergency service volunteers provide invaluable services. I share his interest in finding ways to recognize their contribution. However, as parliamentarians we are obligated to all Canadians. On this point, I fear that the hon. member's proposition may go too far. While it is very generous toward emergency service volunteers, it may be perceived as being unfair to other taxpayers who are also volunteers.
If there is a principle upon which our tax system is based, it is that of fairness. Under this general tenet of fairness, a basic principle is that people with comparable incomes should pay comparable amounts of tax. The income tax rule should take into account all sources of income, including the person's earnings from employment, the return on their corporate stocks if they have them, other investments if they have them, and even their government benefits.
I would also go a step further. This income should be counted not only if it is paid in cash, but also if it takes other forms, such as in kind employment benefits. That principle applies for instance when a taxpayer receives an employer provided vehicle, awards or subsidized loans. Under the fairness principle of our tax system, the employee who benefits must declare it and there are taxes to be paid on that.
We must also be mindful of the impact of giving special treatment to income that is paid to emergency service volunteers. I understand that it feels good to be generous to some groups, but we must guard against being perceived as being unfair to other groups.
In this regard, the Income Tax Act provides a reasonable degree of recognition for the important role of emergency service volunteers. These individuals as of now can receive up to $1,000 in financial recognition from a public authority without having to pay any tax. Before 1998 this exemption was targeted at volunteer firefighters and it was limited to $500 annually.
This special provision is fair and reasonable. If a public authority finds reason to provide a small amount to compensate its emergency service volunteers because of the costs they incur in providing their services, the rules essentially say that the government will not diminish the value of this compensation by taxing it. The rules also relieve public authorities of the burden of having to prepare tax information slips for modest amounts they pay to our emergency service volunteers.
I fear that the hon. member's bill would be much more burdensome for volunteer organizations and the volunteers themselves. I do not state that as a fact, but it is an issue that needs to be looked at.
In order to fairly administer this proposal it would require public authorities to count the hours of service provided by each volunteer so that the volunteer, the public authority and the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency all know when the eligibility criterion, that is the 200 hours of service, has been surpassed. This could be a burden that could be significant when we consider that there are more than 400,000 emergency service volunteers in Canada.
However, the hon. member's proposal goes much further. It goes beyond just providing recognition to emergency service volunteers and easing administration for public authorities. The proposed $3,000 deduction is a significant amount of money. It would allow emergency service volunteers to receive the equivalent to what would be Ontario's minimum wage of three months pay. In my view this would be difficult to justify to other Canadians who work at low wage jobs.
The House should look at whether emergency service volunteers expect or need financial recognition for their service. Statistics Canada has a done an interesting survey that finds that most Canadians do not appear to expect financial assistance or incentives as a reward for their volunteering. The respondents were more likely to say that they volunteered because they wanted to help a cause in which they believed, they wanted to put their skills and experience to work, or they had been personally affected by the cause that the organization supported.
Seven out of ten Canadians cite time limitations and not financial cost as a reason for not volunteering or not volunteering more.
I recognize that emergency service volunteers want to be recognized for what they do, but given the facts that have been raised by other members that Canada has the highest rate of volunteerism, and many forms of volunteerism, I am concerned about the fact that we are asking the House to put a value on one type of volunteerism as opposed to others.
Our whole fiscal policy as it relates to volunteerism should be looked at and that, in discussion with all Canadians, there should be a weight put on the different types of volunteerism rather than doing it piecemeal.
I only have to think of the 1998 ice storm in Quebec. It was not just in the rural areas that we had volunteers performing emergency services. When I think of my riding, which was the riding on the island of Montreal which was most affected by the ice storm, I think of literally the hundreds of constituents who gave of their time, 10 hours, 15 hours, 18 hours, 20 hours for up to 10 days at a time. We must look at the overall picture in order to determine how our fiscal policy should deal with volunteerism.
Emergency service volunteerism is one piece of that. I would hate to see us move in a piecemeal way, in a way that would cause other volunteers who perform other needed services to the community feel that their contributions were not seen as being as valued, as wanted, or as needed as those provided by emergency service volunteers.
I think this is an interesting idea. However, I think that it may be somewhat premature. We should be looking at our entire fiscal policy as it relates to volunteers in general. We should debate and discuss how we can better recognize not just with awards but with financial recognition if Canadians think that is required and needed, and then weight it.
When I think of people who give up many hours of their time in the urban centres working sometimes in conditions that are not as perilous perhaps on the face of it as emergency service volunteers in the rural areas but possibly perilous in the sense that they may be working with people who suffer from infectious diseases, I think that we need to have that debate. However, the bill is too limiting and therefore I would hesitate to support it. I would like to see a broad discussion and debate on the entire issue.
I wish to thank the member for Lethbridge for raising this issue and allowing us to have at least part of that debate.