» Industry Advocacy Health & Fitness
is balanced, a target date Harper has set for about 2015. But Gilbank remains optimistic. “I think we’ll get it before then,”
he says. “We’ll continue our lobbying campaign to make sure we’re top of mind, and we’ll continue to push all our tax credit initiatives.” That push has already paid off. The
adult tax credit will complement the groundbreaking Children’s Fitness Tax Credit (CFTC), a $500 tax deduction that went into effect in 2007. This was great news for parents, allowing them to deduct some of the cost of their chil- dren’s soccer, swimming or fitness club membership fees, for example. The intent was to motivate a genera-
tion of young Canadians to embrace a healthy and fit lifestyle and to help prevent the onset of obesity. “We saw this as a way to get chil-
dren more active, for parents to get their kids more involved, and for fami- lies to get together and do something active,” notes FIC President David Hardy. According to the Government of
FIC Executive Director Brian Gilbank (leſt) with David Hardy, president of FIC and Trisha Sarker, association manager.
Fighting for the Industry
Fitness Industry Council of Canada celebrates six years and counts its successes. BY KATHRYN KORCHOK
D
oes fitness pay? That’s the contention of the Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) which
recently achieved a coup when Prime Minister Harper promised to introduce a $500 fitness tax credit for adults. The bill would allow people to deduct the purchase of a gym membership
18 Fitness Business Canada September/October 2011
on their federal tax returns making fitness not only a physical goal but also a monetary investment. That’s the good news. “We were certainly ecstatic to hear
that,” says FIC Executive Director Brian Gilbank. The downside: the tax credit won’t be introduced until the federal budget
Canada, more than one-and-a-half million Canadians currently take ad- vantage of the existing Children’s Fitness Tax Credit which FIC amended to include gym memberships, and not just sports programs as originally pro- posed by the government. It’s been one of FIC’s success stories. FIC was instrumental in getting this
legislation on the books in part be- cause of an economic report and poll it commissioned in 2006 and released in 2007 by Pollara and the Centre for Spatial Economics. The report showed that more than three in five Canadians supported a fitness tax credit for adults. “Support for the fitness tax credit for
adults and the success of the federal CFTC allowed provincial governments to recognize the benefits of a fitness tax credit for children with the natural progression being to amend the credit to include adults,” notes Hardy. The economic report also concluded
that the federal government could save at least $2.5 billion in net healthcare costs over the next 21 years and that one million more Canadians could be- come active and healthier as a result of its implementation. Other benefits would include less absenteeism and greater productivity at work because of less inactivity-related illness. Fitness pays, indeed.
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