Canada election 2015: Justin Trudeau's tax credits: Does he think teachers are special?
Trudeau has proposed a new tax credit for teachers
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has offered a surprising explanation for his plan to offer tax credits to teachers and early childhood educators — almost everyone else is eligible for tax credits.
"In just about every job that people do across the country, they're allowed to claim work expenses as tax benefits. Why should teachers be any different from any one else?" Trudeau said today, when asked at a campaign stop in Gatineau, Que., why he supports boutique tax credits.
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The Liberal plan, announced last Wednesday, would give teachers 15 per cent back on up to $1,000 of their own money spent on classroom supplies. It's modelled on a similar credit available in Prince Edward Island. Educators would have to submit their receipts come tax-filing season.
So what is Trudeau referring to when he argues that comparable benefits are available for "just about every job?" A spokesperson for the Liberal party pointed to specific tax credits for business owners, the self-employed and tools for tradespeople. However that leaves out the millions of Canadians employed in other sectors such as health care, food service and public administration.
Yet in the same breath, Trudeau seemed to argue that teachers deserve a tax credit because they make an exceptional contribution.
"My own personal experience as a teacher showed me that teachers spend out of pocket in the hundreds of dollars every single year on school supplies ranging from stickers to posters for their kids, " said Trudeau, who previously taught math, drama and French.
"It's about time we recognize what teachers offer to, not just our students, but our future and that's what this is about."
The Tories have said Trudeau's teacher tax credit proposal is redundant as the "Canada employment amount," introduced by the Conservative government in 2006, allows employees to claim work-related expenses, up to $1,146 for the 2015 tax year.
But the Liberals have said their benefit to teachers would go "above and beyond the employment credit that any employee in any field already receives."