Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to say a few words on Bill C-325, an act to amend the Income Tax Act, regarding a deduction for voluntary emergency services. At the outset I want to express my support for the bill to the hon. member who introduced the bill. It or something like it should have been introduced in the House of Commons a long time ago. It is long overdue.
The bill is only one page long but it says a lot. It amends section 60 of the Income Tax Act by adding a paragraph to that section. It indicates that an emergency service volunteer could avail of a $3,000 tax deduction if he or she has performed at least 200 hours of service in the previous year. It is a very good bill. As I said, it is a bill that is long overdue and one which we should all support.
Section 60.03 is added. It requires a volunteer to obtain a certificate from the relevant authority attesting to the 200 hours of volunteer service. It stipulates that training time can be included in the 200 hours. It is a reasonable safeguard against the deduction being abused by people who have not put in the necessary time or effort on behalf of their community. As I said, it is a one page bill but it says an awful lot.
We are all very much aware that volunteers are the heart and soul of our community. Volunteers are also part of the economy. I do not know if members are aware that Canada has 7.5 million volunteers. We have 175,000 not for profit organizations. It is a little difficult to believe but those 7.5 million volunteers put 1.1 billion hours of work annually into the Canadian economy for various causes.
Believe it or not, the volunteer work is estimated to be worth about $16 billion annually. That translates into about the budget of four medium size provinces, or four provinces the size of Newfoundland and Labrador. That is $16 billion and it is the equivalent of 578,000 full time jobs. That is remarkable.
In my constituency there are 12 to 15 volunteer fire departments. I very often have the opportunity to attend their various banquets and what have you. I can tell members firsthand of the great contribution these people make to their communities. I feel very lucky to have been the minister of municipal affairs in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador for about three and a half years. I had the opportunity to visit just about every volunteer fire department in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It is only when we see the kind of contribution that these people make and we visit so many of them that we actually get a feel and a flavour for all of the hard work they put into emergency volunteer services. We need to be very grateful for the contribution, sometimes of life and limb, that these people make.
Volunteering in the emergency service sector is especially important to our small communities across the country. For many small towns without volunteers there would be no local fire department, no local ambulance service, or no local search and rescue team. While these services are vital to the security of the community at large, they are often a danger to the life and limb of the people performing them. I see absolutely no problem in endorsing a special income tax deduction for people who provide these very important services.
We all have our blue books and red books when we go into campaigns. The Progressive Conservative Party in our blue book, our platform in the 2000 general election, said “A Progressive Conservative government would provide a tax credit of $500 per year to all emergency service volunteers”. Our party's reaction to the government's $1,000 deduction for volunteers in receipt of an honorarium, is it should apply to all emergency service volunteers.
I think it was Winston Churchill who said that we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. It is appropriate to make that quote here. Bill C-325 seeks to give back a little to the volunteers who give a lot. As I have said, at times they probably, God forbid, give everything, life and limb included, to make our communities better and safer for all of us. This initiative is even more important in a post-September 11 world.
I congratulate the member for bringing in the bill. I wholeheartedly support moving it forward in the business of the House.