Good afternoon. I'm Dr. Alanna Weisman.
We are supportive and grateful for the commitments made in budget 2021 to recognize more activities under the current requirements, such as time spent determining dietary intake, physical exertion, medical appointments and medically required recuperation. This will help more people with type 1 diabetes access the tax credit. However, the current requirements are still problematic from a policy and medical perspective.
The 14-hour requirement for eligibility was introduced when the DTC was established in 1988. The Canada Revenue Agency states, “The purpose of the DTC is to provide for greater tax equity by allowing some relief for disability costs, since these are unavoidable additional expenses that other taxpayers don’t have to face.”
People with type 1 diabetes should not have to worry about how they are going to pay for insulin, supplies, advanced glucose monitoring devices or insulin pumps. Those costs exist regardless of how much time per week is spent on managing diabetes.
For example, those living with type 1 diabetes rely on insulin to survive. Diabetes management has come to the point where insulin pumps are viable options for individuals looking for an alternative approach to calculating and administering daily doses of insulin. While an insulin pump saves time and may help ease the mental burden associated with calculating insulin doses, it costs $6,000 to $8,000 and is not often covered by traditional health insurance plans. Less time spent on managing diabetes does not equate to an eased financial burden.
The current requirements for the disability tax credit are rife with inequities in access based solely on how health care providers fill out forms. The DTC could be approved for one person while being denied for another who has the same condition, simply because of a difference in the way their individual health care provider filled out their application form.
The current eligibility process is cumbersome and the 14-hour requirement is arbitrary, presenting many challenges for those trying to access the benefit. This barrier can be improved by removing the requirement entirely or reducing the threshold to seven hours to eliminate uncertainty around qualification. If this threshold is not removed or reduced to seven hours, individuals with type 1 diabetes will continue to be denied access, forcing them to remain living with the financial burden that comes with this disease and without the proper support in place to ease it.
I would like to thank JDRF and Dave for their work, and to thank the committee for hearing our testimony. We hope you will consider our recommendation to make the DTC more equitable and accessible to all with type 1 diabetes.
Thank you.