Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question. I take the member at his word that it is a sincere question and I believe it is.
When someone accepts a job in another part of the country and does that on a permanent basis, the Income Tax Act already provides assistance to those workers. The Income Tax Act, for example, allows workers to write off their moving expenses, but that is when they are moving for a job that will be permanent.
What happens in the building trades is that they may be asked to move from my hometown of Hamilton to Sudbury for a period of six months while the Sudbury hospital is being built. However, that is not a permanent job so the worker would have to move his or her entire family to Sudbury for six months. That makes no sense.
If there is a trades shortage in Sudbury, this would allow a worker to accept that job in Sudbury, get some additional help for accommodation and travel expenses to that job site, but would allow him to then come home and the next time perhaps accept a job in Sarnia, where perhaps a school is being built. That is what the bill is designed to do. If there are labour shortages in one part of the province or country and we have skilled workers who are unemployed in another region, the bill would facilitate those workers accepting jobs in other parts of the country.
The member said at the outset that he was formerly a member of the carpenters' union. The carpenters were a driving force behind my bill and I would encourage the member to talk to the leadership of his former union. I am sure they would be delighted to sit down with him at greater length than I can do here in the House, and explain the details. I know that he will come to understand the merits of the bill.