moved that Bill C-303, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (travel expenses for a motor vehicle used by a forestry worker) be read the second time and referred to committee.
Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be able to deal with this bill in the House a few days before the budget is tabled. This is the third time I have raised this issue. For the information of the hon. members, I would like to explain once more the situation of forestry workers in Quebec and Canada.
Here is a concrete example from my place. In my riding, some people have to go to work for a week at a time at the other end of the province. I live in the Lower St. Lawrence area, and people there go to work in the forestry industry in Abitibi, on the North Shore, or some place else. Their vehicle is essential to their job. They use it to get to the area concerned and for their work once they get there.
We have realized that, in the present situation, with no income tax deduction for these workers, there is not an incentive to go to work. In the situation we have now, with the lumber crisis and enormous pressure to drive down the cost of labour, a worker does not have much left at the end of the year.
The situation is the same for everybody, for those who work in the forest and for those who work in plants. All those involved in the forestry industry at this time in Canada are having a hard time, particularly with the softwood lumber crisis. There is less and less money to support families.
In 2000 I wrote to the then finance minister, who is now the Prime Minister, to ask him to consider the possibility of restoring tax fairness for those people. I met with people from my riding, but I realized that similar situations existed throughout Quebec, particularly in the forestry regions. There are people in these regions who work in forest management territories. These territories have shrunk because there is less cutting going on. This forces workers to travel further to find work. In so doing, they have to assume heavy costs that are not tax deductible.
In February 2000, I wrote the Minister of Finance, who is now the Prime Minister. This is what he said in his response:
What constitutes a reasonable level of expenses for motor vehicles is a complex issue that requires a thorough study. The review of this issue and of other components of the tax system concerning motor vehicles is still going on. We will inform you of the results as soon as it is completed.
This letter was dated June 2, 2000. At the time I expected a response in the subsequent months and that the situation could be corrected in the next budget if the government decided to follow up on my request. Moreover, the bill I introduced at the time would have improved matters. I had hoped the government would support it in order to help forestry workers.
Unfortunately, the then finance minister, the new Prime Minister, never deigned to follow up on the response he had given before. When he said, “We will inform you of the results as soon as it is completed”, I would have expected to receive information, but it never came. We never received it. I had to do additional research.
The Income Tax Act is very clear in the interpretation:
At any time, the distance admissible as an employment expense is the distance between the employer's office and the forest camp office and the cutting site, provided the forestry worker received instructions at the office or the camp. At no time is the distance from the worker's home to the stump admissible.
So people are put in the position of having to use a motorized vehicle, something essential to their work and required of them by their employer. They have to use it to get to their job, which is often hundreds of kilometres away, but get no tax deduction for this. The cost of this vehicle, one that is often hard on gas, is quite high because a person needs a powerful vehicle for that kind of terrain.
So all the expenses to get to the work site weekly, once calculated from the mathematical and economic point of view, may convince them that it is not worth going to the job. So society ends up with people on its hands who would rather be working but are instead remaining unemployed and sometimes end up on welfare because they are in an area where there are no jobs or opportunities to make use of their skills.
For that reason, I hope that Bill C-303 which we are discussing today will gain the support of most of the members of this House. The other times it has been debated here, some were in favour and some were not. Unfortunately then we did not have the outcome of the studies undertaken by the Department of Finance available to us.
Today we have a budget coming very shortly. As hon. members know, there are forestry workers who have to sweat to earn a living. Yet they see the federal government once again with an $8 billion surplus. They have to cope with a very restrictive employment insurance program, and often are unable to get enough weeks of benefits on top of the weeks they have worked to ensure them of some income all year.
In the cases that I am talking about, forestry workers who often work away from home find that it is unacceptable that a government that has such a huge surplus does not encourage them to work when they want to do their job and, indeed, this job must be done. There may be a manpower shortage. This is absurd. There are people who would be available to do this work, but they cannot, because the financial bottom line will be negative if they have to go to work and pay for all the costs.
It is this situation that the current bill is designed to correct. I hope that it will be passed and that the tax laws will be changed accordingly. There must also be a different interpretation of the regulations, so that workers who want to work, who want to make a living and who are forced to travel long distances do not have to support a portion of the cost, which is unacceptable.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I expect members of this House to be particularly sensitive in these times where, because of the softwood lumber crisis, people are going through very tough situations. The financial survival of families is on the line. Often, this situation, this imbalance, this lack of acknowledgment of the tax expense means the difference between maintaining the independent small business, self-employment and quitting the job.
This is why I would like forestry workers to get the acknowledgment they deserve. I would also like them to be given the satisfaction of being able to work, of bringing an income home and of supporting their family. They have developed skills in this sector, and employers are waiting for them to do the work that must be done.