Your full address including postal code:

Your MP's name:

Your MP's address:
House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

Text of letter (please add your own comments too):
Dear Sir or Madam, I'm writing this letter to inform you of a situation that exists within the Canadian trucking industry, a situation that amounts to a grand subsidy to the real cost of moving freight. This subsidy is coming directly out of the pockets of Canada's truck drivers and their families. In many industrial sectors, employees are offered some sort of allowance to cover the cost of meals consumed while traveling on company time. The trucking industry is unique in that motor carriers, as a rule, do not contribute to their drivers' meal expenses. Canadian truck drivers are required to pay 100% of the cost of their meals while on the road. The direct cost to the driver, when you factor in U.S. exchange, can easily exceed $11,000 per year. If an average long-haul trucker earns somewhere between $35,000 and $45,000 annually, then upwards of 25% of their gross income goes directly back into feeding the driver while he or she is at work. Trucker's families feel the pinch too. The cost of eating on the road leaves them with little more than $20,000, after tax, to live on while the breadwinner is away for upwards of 250 days a year. Eating properly, according to the Canada Food Guide for proper nutrition, the cost of three decent meals can easily exceed $40.00. Given the fact that trucking companies do not contribute to the well being of their employees while they're away, it's become an accepted part of life in trucking for drivers to turn to the tax code for some relief from these costs. But even that mechanism fails miserably to meet the demands of eating properly while on the job. The TL2 form, the claim for away-from-home expenses for transport employees, meets only about 25% of the actual cost, due largely to the fact that the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (CCRA) deems these meals to be 'business meals', and therefore grants only 50% of the cost as a deductible expense. When all is said and done, a driver is lucky to recover a paltry $1500 to $2000 out of the $11,000 spent eating while on the job. What I'm hoping that you, as my Member of Parliament, would consider doing on behalf of Canada's 250,000 professional drivers is to support a move to have the 50% exemption restored to a full 100% of the costs incurred, and further, to have that entire sum returned to the driver as a tax credit. The trucking industry has approached former Finance Minister, Paul Martin, on many occasions, as have many hundreds of individual drivers, asking that he re-examine the issue of the business meal deductibility, but he has steadfastly refused to budge on the issue. I believe, however, that Martin is making a fundamental mistake in viewing a trucker's away-from-home meals as 'business meals.' Martin has continually insisted that the tax code has to be applied fairly across all sectors. He has stated that it would be unfair to grant trucking a more generous deduction for 'business meals' than any other sector. On that assertion, he's correct. But, a truck driver's meals aren't 'business meals.' They really should be viewed as a cost-of-living issue or as an employment expense. Martin is obviously operating under the assumption that the trucking industry somehow contributes to the cost of its drivers' meal expenses and probably assumes that it's the carriers, not the drivers, who are looking for a more generous deduction. So here's the issue in a nutshell: Canadian truck drivers are paying 100% of the cost of their meals while they're on the road working on behalf of their carriers. Those costs, when you factor in U.S. exchange, can easily exceed $11,000 per year, or 25% or more of their gross income. Through the available mechanism, drivers can recover less one-quarter of that cost. It's worth pointing out that government employees receive a tax-free per-diem of $50 plus an additional $11.50 for incidental expenses when they travel on behalf of the Canadian government (as per the Treasury Board of Canada guidelines for government employees, effective Oct. 1, 2001). If Canadian truckers were granted a similar allowance through the tax code, the Finance Minister would be putting an additional $2.7 billion worth of spending potential back into the economy instead of draining that amount from the pockets of Canadian truckers and their families. Would it not seem fair that the Canadian truckers who are not offered a daily meal allowance by their employer should be allowed to deduct a more reasonable amount from their take-home pay to cover the costs incurred in the course of doing their jobs? Based on the figures quoted earlier, what I'm asking for is a daily meal exemption for long-haul truck drivers of $44.00 for each day away. The Treasury Board has already determined that $61.50 is a reasonable allowance for a government employee, so, does $44.00 per day (still considerably short of the Treasury Board guidelines) not also seem reasonable for truck drivers under the circumstances I've outlined above? Given the fact that John Manley has now taken over the Finance portfolio from Paul Martin, will you please consider raising this issue with the new minister?