Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add a few words to the discussion on Bill C-325, put forward by my hon. colleague from Lethbridge.
He of course has my undying loyalty since his daughter lives in my riding. I have to pay a great deal of attention to make sure that all my constituents are happy. I have to be loyal to the member for Lethbridge because of that.
I recognize the history, especially in the remote areas of the country, of volunteers for emergency services. We think of firefighters and ambulance drivers. Not that long ago people from all walks of life were doing this voluntary work and they did it to the best of their ability. Sometimes they were ill-prepared for it because of lack of training and lack of proper equipment in the communities. However they do the best they can and have done so over many years.
I remember quite distinctly, when I was probably five or six years old, living on the prairies. I think I have mentioned in the House before that my father was the one who arranged for a new telephone network. None of us had phones until then. My dad was the one who kicked off organizing phones. These phones were the hand cranked ones. The young people here will really wonder whether I have escaped from the museum recently.
However we had these hand cranked phones. I still remember that our ring was two longs and one short. When our phone rang everyone on the whole network could pick up and listen to what we were saying. It was called a party line at that time. The intention was that one of our neighbours was calling and we would respond because it was our ring.
The practice in those days was that if anyone needed help in an emergency they would get on the phone and crank the thing. It was one very long ring in which case everyone would get on the line. We cannot do today because the present technology does not permit it.
However one morning there was a very long ring. My dad answered the phone and found out that our neighbour had been involved in a farm accident. In fact, my dad was one of the persons who arrived there as soon as he could. He found out that the tractor had actually taken the life of one of our neighbours. This was the lady who was calling to her neighbours asking for help. She said that she needed help.
As a little aside, those were wonderful communities in those days. I also remember that was the year all the neighbours got together and harvested Mrs. Pasch's fields before any of them did their own. That was the kind of community relationship that gave rise to the volunteers who then had the opportunity to go for more training and become better equipped to help people when they were in need.
Bill C-325 reflects that that spirit of co-operation and kinsmanship is still very much alive. It is quite evident in all of the small communities in my riding and certainly in others as well.
My colleague has put forward this bill, which, in a very small way, would give a small monetary recognition to the people who work as volunteers. I commend the member for that. He is obviously reflecting the sentiments of many people who believe that those who volunteer in these emergency services deserve more recognition than just sort of a passing thanks.
As has been mentioned on numerous occasions already in today's debate, this provides for a deduction from taxable income of up to $3,000 for a person who volunteers for a minimum of 200 hours. I am sure my colleague will not mind if I say to him that I certainly support his bill in principle. I would like to see it go to committee, but there are a few revisions which I would recommend to my colleague and to the committee when they study this bill. I think that perhaps he might be open to some of these revisions.
First, as an amateur mathematician I have a bit of a problem with the 200 hour cut-off. This is called in mathematics a stepping function, where it has one value until a certain place, at which point it has a completely different value. To explain what I am referring to I will use an example. If someone worked 195 hours, according to this bill that individual would be entitled to nothing. It is the same for a person who worked 196, 197, 198 or 199 hours, but as soon as they get to the 200 hours suddenly they can deduct up to $3,000 from their taxable income and thereby have a considerable saving in the amount of taxes they would pay.
I would like to see some thought given to changing it from a stepping function into one that perhaps has a little more uniformity to it as it goes along. I know there is a bit of a problem in terms of bookkeeping, but I think it could be done. It would make it much more fair instead of having this instantaneous threshold. That is one little suggestion I have.
I also would like to counter the argument put forward by the parliamentary secretary in terms of the amount of book work required. I think this is an item which is already being done in many instances and it is also, just like our income tax system in totality, based on the honour system. I think it would not be a huge increment to ask a person who is a volunteer to keep an annual log that would contain three columns: the date, the time in and the time out. It would show the hours worked that day. Every time a person was involved in an activity as a volunteer in emergency services it would simply be entered into a log. I really sincerely doubt that it should take more than between five and eight seconds, which is my estimate, for that book work to be done. Then in the end the person would simply have to add it up, put a signature to it and declare that it is accurate; of course there is a rule against providing inaccurate information.
There is something else I would like to recommend, and here I agree somewhat with the parliamentary secretary. I think an amendment should be made to make this into a refundable tax credit so that not only those who have other income get this reward. Very often we find that people who do this kind of volunteering are people who have more free time. Many of them do not have a great deal of independent income, so again, what would happen here I think is a potential unfairness. There could be two people side by side, both of whom meet the criteria but one with larger income who can thereby reduce his or her taxable income and get a benefit, whereas the other person may have little or no income or not even be in a taxable bracket. This would thereby not provide for that individual a thank you in a compensatory form.
I would like to close by commending my colleague for the recognition of a very important element in our society: the work of the volunteer, the person who says, “Yes, if someone is in distress I will be there to help. I will put my own life and safety at risk if necessary and I will do what I can to help my neighbours”. I think this is a good step forward.
I cannot resist saying in my closing 12 seconds that we should probably consider very, very strongly increasing the basic exemption for all Canadians since they are all being taxed to death.