March Advocacy Corner

CURRENT ADVOCACY INITIATIVES:

1. TaxFreeTherapy.ca - a National Coalition of CCPA, PRPA, OSRP + many more associations from Coast to Coast to Coast!

Actions Taken

• On March 6, MP Lindsay Mathyssen read our petition in Parliament, including a reference to her Private Member's Bill along with a request that the government introduce its own bill to end this tax ASAP.
  Scroll to =>   15:40:13 in the following video https://parlvu.parl.gc.ca/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20230306/-1/38635?Language=English&Stream=Video
  Now the government has a maximum of 45 business days to table a written response. Please revisit this page for updates!

• On the Friday, February 10 deadline, the OSRP wrote and emailed Pre-Budget Submissions to both Federal and Provincial (Ontario) Ministries of Finances, advocating strongly for GST/HST Tax Exemption, using language from the www.TaxFreeTherapy.ca website.

• House of Commons Petition received 14,244 verified signatures before it closed Friday January 13. This is a remarkably high number given that it was only online 4 months - the maximum time allotted for HoC petitions. Thank you to all members who signed and shared!

• CLICK HERE FOR A PRINTABLE LETTER OF THANKS FROM THE NATIONAL COALITION

• NB: the online tool for emailing your MP will stay on www.taxfreetherapy.ca until this tax is gone.
  ○  1,318 letters were generated and sent to the writer’s MP, cc’d to Finance Minister Freeland, as of January 2023

• All endorsements, video and otherwise, from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, MP Carol Hughes, Broadcaster Alan Cross, Madison Violet etc. can be found at Tax Free Therapy (under MEDIA)

• On February 9, CCPA Board President-Elect, Carrie Foster, Montreal-based Psychotherapist, testified effectively for GST/HST exemption to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. Her 5-minute intro can be VIEWED by sliding the bar to the timecode 11:10:27; she speaks until 11:15:15
  

• An Advocacy Committee member kindly edited another short clip from this session - Foster and her CCPA Colleague answering questions from MPs about the GST/HST issue

• On February 13, MP Stephen Ellis (PC rep for rural Nova Scotia riding) demanded HST exemption for RPs in the House of Commons. Click HERE for transcript of his question in the House in which he asked: “Counsellors and psychotherapists are required to charge GST on their services. We know that, sadly, many Canadians do not have private coverage for those services, but to add insult to injury, to pour salt in a wound, what we are now requiring is for Canadians to pay GST on those services. How does that make any sense?”

National Coalition next steps may include:

• The Government's response - ideally removing this tax and making note of it in the April 2023 Federal Budget - but we cannot guarantee this outcome, only that we are doing everything we can
  

• The Coalition’s response to the Government’s response

2. PRPA Government Engagement Working Group (GEWG) met March 9th

• Members discussed their upcoming February 28 presentation to CLHIA - CLHIA - Home (National association of insurance companies) to advocate for RPs being included in benefits plans

• Upcoming Rates survey to all RPs drafted by Andrea D’Onofrio, Founding Advocacy Committee Member

• QA Case-Based Assessment - looped in Chair of PRPA CRPO Committee, re: OSRP members’ concerns. See here for more: CRPO & Advocacy To All OSRP UPDATE March 2023

ACTION ITEMS:

• Working to hire OSRP’s own Liaison.

• Will research government incentives for other Health Professions to work regionally, or with other underserved communities, so we can advocate the Ontario Government for such incentives for RPs

• OSRP to be prepared to provide full consultation and review rights on Queen’s Park media release and all media conference details

• Impact (Lobbying Firm engaged by PRPA) will schedule a meeting with new ONDP leader Marit Stiles’ office, to discuss the important role of RPs in Ontario, and to address our concerns about previous ONDP Leader Andrea Horvath’s platform which stated “Ontarians should pay for their mental health services with an OHIP card, not a credit card.”

Thank you!

–Advocacy Co-Chairs, Dr. Natasha Tuletta-Bowman and Rachel Fulford (both also Co-Vice-Chairs of OSRP Board)

Advocacy Committee Members (in alphabetical order by first name):