Finance Minister Eric Girard wants to make sure all foster families are “treated fairly” before promising tax changes.
This is what the elected member of the Coalition avenir Québec affirmed when made aware of the story of little Charlie, revealed in The duty Tuesday.
The foster family of this three-year-old girl, whose name has been withheld for legal reasons, regrets not having access to tax credits for childcare expenses because Charlie is from the Branch youth protection (DPJ). Still a candidate for adoption, she would therefore be “invisible to the eyes of the tax”.
“I asked the Ministry of Finance to look at the situation and ensure that these families are treated fairly,” he said during a press scrum.
“The balance we currently have is that the benefits that families receive are not taxable, but on the other hand, they are not eligible for the tax credit for childcare expenses. So it’s a balance, ”he said later.
In the morning, the opposition parties in the National Assembly had in turn denounced the situation in which finds the foster family of little Charlie. ” This is unacceptable. The government needs to fix it quickly. He can do it,” said interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay.
“We lack host families and there, we exclude them from financial assistance which could give them a little boost. I do not understand, it seems to me inconsistent with the desire we have to take better care of children who find themselves in a foster family, ”added the co-spokesperson for Québec solidaire Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
Parti Québécois MP Joël Arseneau for his part demanded “that the government be more attentive to the needs of foster families who are extremely generous, who will take in children who really need it”. “I think there’s a flaw there that just needs to be fixed,” he said.
Eric Girard maintains that it is too early. “I don’t think we’re at the modification stage. We are at the stage of understanding whether these families are being treated fairly,” he reiterated on Tuesday.