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QUEBEC

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As the head of the federation for Quebec’s medical specialists, Gaétan Barrette had criticized the province’s costly but popular in vitro fertilization program as an “open bar.”

Now Quebec’s health minister, Barrette tabled a bill Friday to cut all the province’s publicly-funded, assisted-procreation services, except for artificial insemination.

The Quebec government has spent $216 million on the IVF program since it was set up in August 2010, he noted. By tightening access, the provincial government hopes to save $48 million.

Bill 20would restrict access to publicly-funded, assisted procreation to a tiny minority of Quebecers, including those left infertile by a medical treatment such as chemotherapy, he explained.

To maintain “reasonable access” to the procedure, Barrette said couples who resort to IVF would be given a flexible tax credit based on their income. A family earning less than $50,000 a year would be given a tax break equal to 80 per cent of the procedure’s cost. The tax credit slides down to 20 per cent for families making $120,000 or more a year.