WHEREAS volunteer emergency responders are essential to providing adequate emergency coverage in small communities throughout Canada and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find willing individuals to volunteer their time in critical emergency response areas such as ambulance attending, firefighting, road rescue and search and rescue; AND WHEREAS involving volunteers in unpaid classroomfield training and actual callouts for emergency services, as opposed to employing paid and trained emergency professionals, represents a significant cost savings to government; AND WHEREAS a tax exemption for the first 1,000 in honoraria paid when done so to emergency services volunteers for their time is not adequate compensation for the considerable time these volunteers dedicate to classroomfield training and other preparatory activities as well as to actual emergency response callouts: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that training standards for various emergency services be established by the Province and documented by the Officers in charge of these services as each service has different requirements for training, and that those volunteers giving that base amount of training time be granted a standard, 3,000 tax exemption as a sign of recognition and appreciation for the voluntary service and government cost savings they provide.
Ministry Of Finance Under the Canada-BC tax collection agreement, the federal government has sole responsibility for determining income subject to taxation, including tax deductions. The benefits of this agreement are low administration costs and the fact that taxpayers need only file one tax return each year. The federal responsibility includes determining whether the deduction is linked to an honorarium paid. As such the Province cannot implement the recommendation.