Kids First funded this case and expert witnesses. A father, Jim Boland, challenged the definition of ‘child care’ in the Tax Act that excludes parental child care, stating was it discriminated based on family status and violated Section 15 (equality rights) of the Charter. He employed and paid his wife to provide parental child care for their children and deducted her wages as a child care expense. The judge agreed that there was discrimination but that the ‘class’ of people (‘stay at home parents’) did not meet the legal test criteria as it is not a vulnerable group historically subject to discrimination therefore not a discrete and insular minority.
NOTE: Defining an adversely impacted class can be done in a way that meets this criteria, eg unmarried mothers, children of unmarried parents, etc.
The following images are the 6 pages of the Boland case file.
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