(Chair) in the chair.

[English]

Honourable senators, I wish to welcome all senators, as well as the viewers across Canada, our country, who are watching us on sencanada.ca.

[Translation]

My name is Percy Mockler, and I am a senator from New Brunswick. I chair the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance. I will now ask my fellow senators to introduce themselves, please.

Good morning. My name is Éric Forest, and I represent the senatorial division of the Gulf, in Quebec.

Good morning. My name is Clément Gignac, and I am a senator from Quebec.

[English]

Jane MacAdam, Prince Edward Island.

[Translation]

I am Rosa Galvez from Quebec.

I am Senator Tony Loffreda from Quebec.

[English]

Larry Smith, Montreal, Quebec.

Elizabeth Marshall, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Yonah Martin, British Columbia.

[Translation]

I am Jean-Guy Dagenais from Quebec.

[English]

Today, we resume our study of Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons), which was referred to this committee on June 8, 2023, by the Senate of Canada.

[Translation]

We are pleased to have with us today the bill’s sponsor, Chris Lewis.

[English]

Mr. Lewis is the MP for Essex. Welcome, Mr. Lewis, and thank you for accepting our invitation to appear in front of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance for questions by the senators. We’ll start with your opening remarks, and then we will move on to questions from the senators.

Thank you so much, chair and committee members. I truly appreciate this much more than you know. When I was originally told that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to come in front of the Senate, it kind of broke my heart. I’m a very open and honest person.

I lost my mother a couple of weeks ago, and one of the last things my mother said to me, as I was at her bedside, with an esophagus full of cancer, in the sweetest, softest voice was, “Honey, how’s your private member’s bill going?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t coming to the committee. Each and every one of you don’t realize how much this means to me this morning.

When it went to the House Finance Committee, we got it through committee in 17 minutes. Maybe we could do it in 16 today; that would be even better. Of course, I’m teasing. I know there are a lot of questions.

Bill C-241, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (deduction of travel expenses for tradespersons). Basically, it’s a no capped limit on how much skilled trades can work. Their travel expenses — their planes, their kilometres over 150 kilometres away from their home, their meals and their lodging — are a deduction to travel expenses, but it doesn’t put a cap on such. I have been from coast to coast to coast, literally from St. John’s out to Vancouver and up to the North, meeting with both unionized and non-unionized skilled trades, and I have yet to find one that doesn’t completely support this bill.

Senators, we all know there is a major housing crisis in Canada. The government is doing a lot of work and putting a lot of investment into the housing situation right now. You can throw all the money at the problem in the world, but if you don’t have the people to build the homes, quite frankly, the job’s not going to get done. This bill is really designed to help out and supplement the housing crisis, but also for the electric vehicle battery plants with upwards of $50 billion to get people active to get people to move from location to location.

I think about the place at the Gordie Howe International Bridge in the Windsor area. By 2025, there will be some 6,500 folks who will need another home. We have to get them active and give them a reason to want to go to work to build the next Gordie Howe Bridge, wherever that may be.

I am very much aware of the government’s labour mobility deduction and the cap of $4,000, and I’ve had extensive conversations with various union halls about this. The truth of the matter is that you can burn up $4,000 in just a couple of months. I believe we should not put a cap or a limit on our skilled trades. As a former businessperson, I could jump on a plane in Windsor and fly to Calgary as many times a year as I needed to in order to get my business done, and I think if it’s good enough for business folks, it should be good enough for our skilled trades.

I’ll keep my comments brief because I really do want to hear your questions and I want to figure out a way to get to a solution on this, but I will suggest, most respectfully, senators, that anything shy of an unlimited amount for our skilled trades is, quite frankly, not doing the work that this bill intends and needs to do.

With that, again, I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you, very much, for allowing me at least the opportunity to be a witness here this morning. Thank you for all the service that you do.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis.

Honourable senators, we will now move to questions, and I will first recognize Senator Marshall.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Lewis. I have a couple of questions, mostly background information. First of all, with regard to the cap that exists now, the $4,000 — your bill doesn’t have a cap. You did mention it in your introductory remarks. My questions are as follows: Why did you remove the cap? Why is there no time frame? Because the existing section requires the individual to be away for 36 hours. Why the reduction from 150 kilometres to 120 kilometres?

Those are the three precise questions that I have, but just from a general perspective, I’d like to know the general background as to how the legislation originated, who you spoke to and who is supporting the change. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, senator. I was trying to take notes there. I had a pen that went dead on me, so if I don’t answer one of your questions, please remind me.

Let’s start with the 150 to 120 kilometres. Geographically speaking, it depends on where skilled trades live. As an example, I live down in the Essex area, and we are very close to the Highway 401 corridor. It’s very simple — well, not simple — it’s generally simple to jump on the 401 corridor and get to your place of work very quickly, depending on where you live in the Essex area. Some folks live right at the 401, and they can be somewhere in an hour and a half.

My thought process on the 120 kilometres is that if you live down where I live, which is in Kingsville, you’re at least 45 minutes just to get to the 401 corridor, and then to get somewhere else —

So it’s based mostly on Ontario. I live in Newfoundland and Labrador, and we have a lot of workers going to Calgary, so it is much more than the 120 kilometres.

Absolutely.

Why is there no time frame, for example, that the individual has to be away for — right now, it’s for 36 hours, and you’ve had no limit?

That’s a great question. So I’m going to pick on Ontario again, understanding that you’re from Newfoundland.

Let’s suggest for a moment that there’s a person in North Bay who is an auto mechanic, and a piece of critical mining machinery goes down in the far north of Ontario. It’s going to be over 36 hours for them just to get there, and there’s no lodging allowed for it.

Now, if they fall under the 30-hour limit in the middle of the winter, and this critical piece of equipment is down, now you’re shutting down a whole mining industry, but the person has to drive for 100 kilometres just to get to a hotel. By putting an hour allowance on this, you’re really handcuffing the folks that are in the remote areas where a lot of the skilled trades are being done. It doesn’t have to just be a mechanic. It could be a welder or a machinist, and that’s the reason.

I’m really trying to remove the barriers to allow our skilled trades to function the way that they should.