Income Tax Act Inequality

Challenge

Kenneth McNeilly, a male university lecturer who lives in Toronto, is engaged in a legal dispute related to reimbursement for tax credits he claimed while starting a family through surrogacy. The Canada Revenue Agency has repeatedly denied Ken’s tax claims for expenses related to the surrogacy of his two children because the surrogate is not his spouse, common-law partner, or dependant. Ken would have been eligible for the tax benefits had he been in a relationship with the woman who carried his child, but as this was not the case, he is excluded from these benefits. Ken is gay.

Crestview Strategy, pro bono, created a coordinated public and government relations campaign to support his broader, longstanding advocacy for policy change to a discriminatory law that prevents gay parents from accessing the same tax entitlements that heterosexual couples receive when they start their families through in vitro fertilization. He is determined to change the law not just for himself, through his court case, but for all future LGBTQ+ parents, as well as for those who turn to surrogacy because, for medical reasons, they cannot conceive a child or carry a pregnancy to term.

Key objective: To leverage Ken’s personal situation, with his surrogacy experience and escalating court challenges to claim his rightful tax credit reimbursements, to further advocacy for federal government policy change to better support LGBT+ individuals starting families and therefore remedy institutional inequities.

• Position Ken’s story as part of broader advocacy by the LGBT+ community and its agenda, like through timing outreach around Pride month
• Elevate Ken’s issue with government decision makers responsible for the policy changes, so they would become aware of the inequity and their role to remedy
• Demonstrate how this policy change makes a tangible difference for the LGBT+ community, and counteracts critics that say the Liberal government’s support for LGBT+ individuals has been hollow and is more focused on improving public perception of themselves

Approach

Our key audience was relevant Federal government decision makers including the country’s first Special Advisor to the Prime Minister on LGBTQ2 Issues, cabinet ministers and local officials representing Ken’s constituency, and the New Democratic Party’s critics for Finance and 2SLGBTQI+ Rights.

Crestview Strategy focused on securing coverage of Ken’s story with media that influence key audiences, including LGBT+, mainstream and government trade publications. This was achieved through repackaging his story as a ‘plea’, which added a new element to his story, which has been ongoing for years. The plea was centred on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s vocal and public commitment to the community and asking him to use his power to remedy inequities within federal government that have a tangible impact on LGBT+ individuals.

Our approach included securing engagement with relevant and influential decision-makers within government and opposition. These engagements raise awareness of Ken’s case and, more notably, the discriminatory nature of the law and its negative impact on all future LGBTQ+ parents. In addition, a pre-budget submission was prepared and presented to the Minister of Finance, requesting an amendment to the Income Tax Act.

Results

The tactics listed above resulted in commitments in the Liberal electoral platform and their most recent Federal budget, Budget 2022, tabled last April. The Liberal platform committed to expanding the Medical Expense Tax Credit to include costs that have been reimbursed to a surrogate mother for her IVF expenses. While Budget 2022 proposes to allow medical expenses related to a surrogate mother or a sperm, ova, or embryo donor incurred in Canada, it does so only prospectively. Next steps, will be to ensure that this measure is retroactive to allow as many LGBT+ parents to benefit from this tax credit.

Media Coverage 

• Income Tax Act must be made fair to LGBTQ2 Canadians: advocate (iPolitics/April 23, 2021)
• CP24 interview (CP24/April 26, 2021)
• Breakfast Television Toronto interview (Breakfast Television/June 29, 2021)
• The cost of building a family (Xtra/June 9, 2021)