Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Elk Island for that question. Being a mathematician, I should have had him help me with this estimate because I am sure he would have come up with more accurate numbers.
The best numbers we could find were approximately 100,000 volunteer firefighters in Canada and possibly 25,000 to 30,000 emergency responders of other kinds. They are in a 20% to 25% tax bracket. We do not know how many would qualify for the 200 hours. Some people told me it was too high. Some thought it was fine, but two hours a week of practice or training and two hours a week of active duty does not seem like a lot. Maybe this would encourage people to stay active.
Based on those numbers, the cost to the government could be anywhere from $30 million to $35 million or $40 million. Those are the best numbers we could come up with. We could not find any current accurate numbers. When we went back a few years and extrapolated with the population, I compared the numbers I could find for Alberta and worked them out with the rest of the country and it worked out pretty close.
It is not a small item. That is an awful lot of money. However, if we were to look at the dollar value compared to a paid professional person in these emergency response positions, it would be peanuts compared to the value of the service that these people would be giving to Canada on a voluntary basis.
As I stated, there are so many communities in this country that cannot afford to pay. They are getting a wonderful service from volunteers who are dedicated and work hard. I think it is an amount that Canadians would gladly give to recognize the contribution that these folks give to our betterment.