It was just a single amendment to the Income Tax Act among all the items in the April 7 federal budget.

But that single amendment will make an enormous difference to Canada’s construction trades workers across the country — and the national economy.

For years, construction tradespeople have had to labour under a particularly unfair section of the Income Tax Act that prohibited them from deducting their travel expenses when they had to relocate to work at construction sites.

Meantime, other professionals like lawyers, accountants or even sales people at construction sites were free under the act to deduct their travel expenses.

For as long as there have been skilled trades people, temporary relocation has been a big part about construction. This is why skilled trades people were once called journeymen. They journeyed to do their highly-skilled and essential work, and still do.

Construction trades people, who have to spend on average $4,000 to temporarily relocate for jobs, have faced great hardships and often have had to decline opportunities, or even change occupations.

The nature of the construction marketplace in Canada is that major infrastructure projects frequently face labour shortages in one province while construction workers in the next province faced unemployment. The reality is construction activity rarely occurs uniformly within provinces and across Canada.

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