Some Ontario Parents With Autistic Kids Will Pay More With HST

The cost of providing a crucial treatment for autistic children will go up for some families when the harmonized sales tax kicks in July 1, a move that’s angered parents who say they’re already going broke to maintain the costly therapy for their kids.

Parents whose children receive publicly funded IBI therapy and those who purchase private IBI services from a registered psychologist will not be charged HST, the government confirmed Tuesday.

But parents buying the treatment from a therapist that hasn’t been licensed by a provincial body will be charged an additional eight per cent on top of the GST they already pay.

Laurie Kirby-McIntosh, whose 10-year-old son Clifford has autism, said she can’t believe parents will be taxed more when they’re already falling into debt and using up their life savings to pay for the one-on-one therapy.

“I can handle it when my son is in meltdown and he is aggressive and I know he can’t control it when he hits me,” said the 40-year-old high school teacher.

“But when the government slaps us in the face like that, it’s unconscionable.”

Many families are forced to pay for IBI themselves because the provincial program is inadequate, said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Parents are facing long wait lists for government-funded therapy or have seen their children arbitrarily cut off from treatment, she said.

Charging an extra eight per cent on a therapy that can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year is “adding insult to injury,” said Horwath.

“It’s another hurdle, it’s more salt in an already festering wound.”

Some parents don’t have a registered psychologist providing IBI because the government removed that requirement, Horwath added.

Victoria Guerreiro, 37, said she’s charged GST on fees to send one of her two autistic daughters to a school where she receives therapy.

The fees amount to about $7,000 per child every six months, she said.

Madison, 6, was deemed to too “high-functional” to receive publicly funded IBI therapy, but started to regress when she was placed in a public school, Guerreiro said. She didn’t bother applying for funding for her daughter Jazmine, 3, who is autistic but can function better than her sister.

She and her husband are using his salary and their retirement savings to pay for Madison’s therapy, she said.

“But that will eventually run out,” said the mother of three, who lives in Concord, Ont.

Asked how she felt about being charged HST on her already steep fees, Guerreiro responded: “Not happy at all.”

“These kids… they need this therapy desperately in the schools.”

Horwath is calling on the province to exempt IBI therapy from the HST, but Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten said it’s up to Ottawa to make the move.

“I wish that the federal government did not apply the GST to these services, but that is up to them,” she said.

“My role, and what I can do to help Ontario families, is continue to press forward and work hard to deliver publicly funded services for children with autism. Obviously a strong economy and tax reforms such as the HST are a solid foundation to be able to maintain and expand publicly funded services.”

Neither the parents nor the government can say how many Ontario families are paying for IBI therapy themselves, which Kirby-McIntosh said can cost up to $60,000 a year.

According to the ministry, 1,286 autistic children were receiving publicly funded IBI therapy as of Sept. 30, 2009, down from 1,306 in the same quarter a year ago. There were just over 500 children receiving the treatment when the Liberals took office in 2003, officials said.

Some 1,555 children were on the provincial wait list in September 2009, up from 1,513 in the same period a year earlier.

Funding for autistic children has jumped to $165 million from $44 million in 2003, and services have been “drastically expanded,” Broten said.

“There is always more work to do,” she added.

“It is certainly an area where we are very proud of what we have gotten done, but we continue to look for better ways to deliver the service.”