The parents of six-year-old Liam, living with type 1 diabetes (also known as juvenile diabetes), were unable to access the tax credit as well as the $1,600 Child Disability Benefit because they could not afford the $6,000 insulin pump. In one of the harshest, if not outright cruellest interpretation of the legislation, the policy statement was very specific as far as denying the DTC to all children dependent on daily insulin injections:

In general, children with type 1 diabetes would qualify for the DTC under the life-sustaining therapy clause if (certain) criteria are met. Criteria: the child requires a continuous infusion of insulin via an insulin pump AND this mode of insulin administration is a medical necessity (not a lifestyle choice). Individuals whose condition is controllable with daily injections of insulin do NOT generally qualify for the DTC, since the actual administration of the insulin injections would not require a total of 14 hours per week.

Liam lived in a remote fishing outpost on the west coast of Newfoundland. His father Roy was a welder and his mother Barb stayed home because of the intensive care required by her son. Liam was diagnosed with the more extreme “brittle” form of this disease, requiring his mother to check her son’s blood sugar levels at least 8 to 12 times each day.

In the middle of the night, while Liam was asleep, Barb would lance her son’s little finger to draw enough blood for a reading in a glucometer. If necessary, without waking him up, she would feed him a Cheez Whiz sandwich, along with a juice box, to prevent a hypoglycemic episode during the night. Barb couldn’t understand why Liam had been denied the DTC for the 2002 tax year, especially when she followed up with additional medical reports. Unlike other children his age, her son was not able to feed himself without her supervision because of the complex system of carefully measuring blood sugar levels and counting carbohydrates to determine his daily food intake. Nor could she understand why she had to jump through so many hoops in the pursuit of justice, causing additional emotional stress on the family.

When Liam was denied the DTC, she expressed her anger and frustration on her website, http://www.diabetesadvocacy.com. I was livid! I screamed! I cried! I kicked the walls! What sort of idiots were making these decisions? Did they not read? Did they miss the part where Liam eats while he is asleep so that he doesn’t die during the night of a hypoglycemic episode? What kind of medical expert could deny our claim?