Archive for October, 2006

While I write this column, MPs in the House of Commons are debating a piece of legislation called the Budget Implementation Act. Let me review some of the tax credits that were in the federal budget.

Tax credits for trades people: $1,000/year in tax credits for trades people. A new $500 tax deduction for trades people for costs in excess of $1,000 for tools they must acquire as a condition of employment. Also, the $200 limit on the cost of tools eligible for the 100-per-cent capital cost allowance will be increased to $500.

For many years on the Opposition bench, Alberta MP Leon Benoit (Reform-Conservative) kept trying to change the Income Tax Act so that car mechanics could claim the cost of their tools against income tax. Well, once the new Conservative government was elected, the following point was made: Why just car mechanics? Why not make this credit available to all trades people?

Apprentices: Up to $2,000/year for employers who hire and train apprentices. Apprentices will be eligible for $1,000 grants as of January 1st, 2007.

Tax credits for employees: $1,000/year for all employees: The new Canada Employment Credit was targeted at employees specifically: Since self-employed people can deduct work expenses against their income, why shouldn’t all employees get a deduction to take care of their work expenses? For simplicity sake, we created a flat deduction so that people need not have to worry about receipts for what are truly universal expenses.

Tax credit for pensioners: $1,000/year pension income tax credit increase: This is actually a doubling of the $1,000 annual amount of eligible pension income that can be claimed under the pension income credit that was put in place years ago. The tax credit had not been indexed for inflation, so the true value had been decreasing over the years. The $1,000/year pension income tax credit increase should make up for past inflation and take care of this problem for several years to come.

Transit pass tax credit: People on low incomes and pensioners tend to be the largest users of public transit. This tax credit will help low income pensioners and the working poor. Most of the discussion in the media about the transit pass tax credit has been centered around environmental issues. However, I think that the advantage of this particular tax credit is that it is targeted to help Canadians on low incomes. For example, I visited with a disabled constituent during the election campaign who will benefit from this program.

These are just a few of the changes in the budget this year; keep an eye out for other changes when you do your income tax.

I’m Brad Trost, your Member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.

I really enjoy reading history. Not only do I enjoy reading history, I also learn some of the lessons of history. Considering the fact that I am an MP, and part of the national government, some of the lessons can actually be applied.

I mention this because I was reading some history on the British and Canadian parliaments. The author talked about how the parliamentary groups worked, the independence of MPs and also provided some excerpts from Hansard (the official record of debate in the House of Commons).

Two things impressed me in my readings: The quality of debate on issues, and the relative independence of thought and behavior of the Members of Parliaments. The MPs of long ago debated issues very seriously. They often decided which way they would vote by what they heard in the House of Commons.

Today, by contrast, parliamentary votes are almost exclusively decided by events outside of the House of Commons. In some ways, this is good because it allows groups from outside Parliament, (riding delegations, interest groups etc.) to make representations in order to provide input on important issues of the day. In other ways, however, this development is very negative.

It is particularly negative in regards to the conformity of public thought that it demonstrates. It also turns debates in the House of Commons into little more than theater and only rarely does debate become a thorough examination of the issues. (One notable exception to this debate was the debate on the definition of marriage where MPs from all sides of the issue engaged in deep thought and real debate.)

In this column I have identified the problem of parliamentary irrelevance, but I haven’t identified a solution. Now I know the reputation of politicians is that “they have an answer for everything.” Maybe I’m unique because I don’t have an answer for every question.

I have a few ideas: Make votes freer in the House of Commons, change party structures, move power from appointed officials to elected representatives. However, while I think these ideas are good, ultimately to effect change in our political culture, it has to come from below. All the new laws in the world will not provide for better representation and better democracy unless ordinary people get involved in the democratic process.

I’m Brad Trost, your Member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.

Just the other week the government trimmed some programs. We trimmed about $1 billion from the federal budget. In total, the Government of Canada’s budget is about $200 billion– so the overall trimming was about one-half of one percent of overall spending. Since there has been talk in the press about all this, I thought I would go over some of the details.

The savings can be divided into three broad categories:
1. Unused spending that was put back into general revenues.
2. Administrative savings that didn’t affect programs.
3. Actual cuts that eliminated programs which were useless or ineffective.

Roughly a third of the savings came from not spending money that was previously allocated. None of the money in this category was actually cut. Government bureaucrats actually found out that they could come in under budget from time to time. Now, if you spent less in your budget than originally planned, would you save it, or would you just spend it to meet your projections? The new Conservative government decided to save the money.

The second category was administrative savings: Nothing glamorous, we just cut back on overhead for programs, and combined some spending in other areas. (Remember this when you hear about cuts to museums and literacy programs. The spending on these programs is still going on–just in more effective ways.)

The third area is: The elimination of useless programs, such as the Court Challenges Program. This was a program which paid a very select group of advocates to sue the government. The government would effectively hire lawyers on both sides of an issue to fight it out in court. It was a great program for lawyers, especially for those who wanted to attack family values, or force the government to spend taxpayers’ dollars.

All in all, when you look at the cuts they are very good for the country. They will help provide the savings necessary to provide tax cuts coming up this spring.

I’m Brad Trost, your Member of Parliament, and I welcome your feedback. Write or call my offices.