Bill C-238
An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (in-home care of relatives)
Sponsor
Peter Stoffer NDP
Introduced as a private member’s bill. (These don’t often become law.)
Status
Introduction and First Reading
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Peter Stoffer Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-238, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (in-home care of relatives)
Mr. Speaker, this bill is one I have been introducing now since 1997 when one of my constituents actually had to purchase an awful lot of equipment for his dying wife. He was told to institutionalize her but he said, "No. If she is going to die she is going to stay in her own home”. The doctor told him the various things that he would require, which were an additional tub, oxygen measures, different types of food, et cetera. When he tried to claim those on his taxes, many of those items were not tax deductible.
If he had put her as a ward of the state, the cost to the government would have been a tremendous amount of money. He could not understand why he could not claim some of these things to provide care for his wife.
This bill would remedy that. If people have a dying relative in their home, they should be able to claim what is required as a tax deduction to prevent the person from becoming institutionalized.
This would allow people who are in the dying phases of their lives to at least die in their own homes with a sense of dignity. It would also allow caregivers to deduct the equipment and purchases that they require in order to make a dying person's life more comfortable at the end.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)