Fitness Industry Council Outraged over Saskatchewan Government’s Fitness Tax

EDMONTON, AB, March 24, 2022 /CNW/ – Fitness Industry Council of Canada (FIC) is outraged over the Saskatchewan authorities’s announcement to implement a 6% tax on health club goers beginning in October.

          “This is unnecessary,” says Sara Hodson, President of the Fitness Industry Council of Canada, “This comes at a time the place we try to get individuals again to the health club, to enhance the well being of Canadians, and to extend our bodily exercise ranges. The Saskatchewan authorities is placing into place a deterrent.”

          Yesterday, Saskatchewan Finance Minister, Donna Harpauer, offered a finances that projected a $463 million greenback deficit for the 2022-2023 fiscal yr. The province plans so as to add a 6 p.c provincial gross sales tax to sporting occasions, museums, rodeos, concert events, and gymnasiums. The elevated taxes will add $35 million {dollars} to the finances to handle the backlog of surgical procedure and hospital beds brought on by COVID-19.

          “They wish to steadiness the finances on the expense of well being,” says Hodson. “Our bodily and psychological well being has deteriorated during the last two years and bodily exercise is crucial to reverse this. We need to be a part of the healthcare resolution. This tax will stop many Saskatchwans from becoming a member of a health club.”

          In 2012, analysis was carried out at Queen’s University in Kingston that discovered the price of bodily inactivity in Canada was 6.8 billion {dollars} – from direct well being care prices to increased mortality charges and misplaced productiveness. The FIC is asking the federal authorities to make health club memberships tax-deductible within the federal election – citing the cost-savings of a bodily lively inhabitants. “We imagine the true value of bodily inactivity is far increased now,” says Hodson.

          “This finances seems to be brief sighted and reinforces a downstream method to the well being of our residents,” says Brenda Yungwirth the proprietor of LIVE WELL Exercise in Regina. “The rationale is to help the surgical waitlist and recruit well being care workers. If wholesome actions resembling health club memberships had been as an alternative promoted, our residents would turn out to be much less depending on well being care therapies. Ironically, by including PST to health club memberships, an extra deterrent to well being care promotion and illness prevention is being established.”

SOURCE Fitness Industry Council of Canada

For additional info: To e-book an interview with Sara Hodson and FIC representatives please contact Erin Phelan, Communications Director, FIC/ LIVE WELL 416-822-8621 [email protected]