Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to stand today in support of Bill C-273. It is great to see that all parties in the House are in favour of the bill.
I must say I was in support of this issue the last time it was before the House. I hope that this time the finance department will listen to the House and do something that is correct.
As I stand here today I hope I am not in conflict because I am a former volunteer fireman. For 14 years I was a member of the Downie-Ellice fire department. I was very proud to be part of that great group. I know how disappointed those firefighters were the last time when the motion to give some income tax relief was defeated in the House.
It has been mentioned here a couple of times that some of the remuneration that might be received by volunteer firefighters or volunteers in the service industry has to be added to their income tax forms at the end of the year. Sometimes that will put the person into a higher tax bracket. I do know that some people who made maybe $1,400 or $2,000 as volunteer firemen added that amount to their income and it put them into a higher bracket. They had to pay $2,500 more in income tax, which meant that it cost them $500 just to be volunteer firemen. Not only in recognition for the fine work they do but also in fairness, as they sometimes put themselves in peril, they should at least be reimbursed for their expenses.
Volunteer fire departments sometimes do not have all the equipment that they might want to have. I can remember after being at one particular fire for the better part of a day, there were dirty hoses lying all over the place and there was really no way to get them back to the fire hall. A lot of volunteer firemen own pickup trucks, so they brought their trucks to the scene, threw all the dirty hoses into the backs of their trucks and took them back to the fire hall. Needless to say those trucks are not owned by the fire department and the volunteers are not reimbursed for that service. That is an example of the things that volunteer firefighters do.
Volunteer firefighters and volunteers in other service groups, become families. They are trained as pairs and work with partners.
I have always said that I resigned from the fire department because I got a little bit heavy and I did not want to put--