Bill C-348 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Department of Employment and Social Development Act (persons with disabilities)

This enactment amends the Department of Employment and Social Development Act to require the Minister to provide information and guidance on applications for programs and services for which persons with disabilities may be eligible and to implement a streamlined application process that, among other things, reduces the administrative burden on applicants. It also provides for reporting requirements in relation to the application process.

Department of Employment and Social Development Act

[Sheri Benson, NDP, Saskatoon West, SK]

Mr. Speaker, to most of the people in my community, and I am sure this is true for most Canadians, government is government. That is to say that in our daily lives, we do not distinguish between municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government. We know that research has actually borne this out, that when someone has had a bad experience or struggles to get a service to which they are entitled, that frustrating, confusing experience translates to “government is not helpful”.

What this means is people do not say “the provincial government and that department of” fill in the blank “is not helpful”, or “the federal government and Service Canada is not helpful”. What happens to citizens is that their negative experience gets attributed to all governments. That makes sense because people's lives are not divided into compartments or neat boxes along jurisdictional lines or departmental lines. Jurisdictions and departments are there to help governments deliver services, to meet mandates, as vehicles to implement policies and laws.

We also know that when someone is accessing service from the government, they do not distinguish between distinct points along a process and say things like, “my phone call was answered right away; that was good service”, and then say, “but the application process was horrific and complicated.” What they say is that the entire journey of the process was not good or was difficult or was confusing, regardless of whether along the way there was good and helpful service.

This is what the research and evidence tells us, which brings me to the topic we are discussing today, and that is, improving the journey for people living with a disability when accessing services and benefits provided by their government.

Currently, if someone went to the government website to apply for CPP disability, the person would be confronted with eight documents totalling 45 pages. Seventeen of those pages are a guide, so 28 pages need to be filled in to apply for Canada pension plan disability. That sounds like a pretty intense and thorough process. Putting aside the difficulties associated with understanding the questions on the application form, and that could be for another bill on another day on plain language in applications, the application sounds like the gold standard to me for determining someone's eligibility for disability benefits.

Bill C-348 would eliminate the onerous burden of multiple forms and duplication for Canadians with disabilities. Once an individual has completed an application and is determined to be eligible for disability benefits, we should not put them through a government application process over and over again to prove they have a disability.

Through this bill, my colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh is trying to ensure that people with a disability get the benefits they are entitled to without the demoralizing, disrespectful, costly, time-consuming process of having to prove over and over again that they have a disability. This bill is brilliant in its simplicity and brilliant in the actual positive impact it would have on people's lives. Sometimes it really is the smallest of gestures that can make the biggest change in people's lives.

I do not want anyone to get me wrong. Parliamentarians and our government have a lot of work to do to address the high level of poverty among people living with disabilities. My hon. colleague reminded us of just that in her introductory speech on the bill. Some 5.3 million Canadians are living with some form of disability, and the poverty rate for persons living with a disability is high, much higher than that of the general population.

According to the DisAbled Women's Network, DAWN, 58% of women with disabilities are living on $10,000 or less a year. My colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby shared with this House what those high rates of poverty look like on the ground in our communities. Half of Canadians who are homeless have a disability, and half of those accessing food banks in Canada are also living with a disability.

That member dared us to imagine what if Canadians living with disabilities were accessing benefits they were eligible for, benefits that, as we have heard, often go unclaimed because the government process itself is a barrier. It is costly, complicated, confusing, and demoralizing, and a process as I have described that asks people to prove over and over again their disability and their worthiness for benefits.

My constituency office in Saskatoon West is a busy place, and as an opposition MP, people would assume we would be busy with town halls, consultations, and meeting with community members to change, improve, get rid of, or introduce new laws and policies to make lives better for people living in my community. They would be partly right. We are busy with those activities, but we are equally busy helping people in my community access benefits which they are eligible for. Daily we help people navigate the system for disability benefits because it is complicated and it does not work for the people the system is intended to help.

A common refrain of mine when hearing people's stories about trying to apply for disability benefits, and I am sure my staff are sick of hearing it, is, “but that does not make any sense”, and that is exactly how I say it: that does not make any sense. One community member came to my office for help because although she was deemed eligible for Canada pension plan disability benefits and was eligible for her long-term disability plan at work, she could not access the disability tax credit. That does not make any sense. People in my community should not have to go to their MP's office to gain access to benefits they are eligible for, and for sure, people should not have to resort to paying private consultants to help them complete a form. That really does not make any sense. This bill would ensure that individuals living with a disability would not have to incur the expense of their time and, most important, their money to prove their disability over and over again to different government departments.

During an earlier debate on this bill, the Parliamentary Secretary for Sport and Persons with Disabilities mentioned the current initiatives the government is undertaking to improve the lives of Canadians living with disabilities, including the much-anticipated accessibility legislation. To that I say, that is awesome. The parliamentary secretary also stated that the government supports the spirit of the bill but will not be supporting Bill C-348. The Liberals' main reason for not supporting this bill, as I understand it and from my perspective, is that there is a misunderstanding of what the bill would do, so I thought I would use an illustration in the hopes that members opposite could find a way to support the bill and ultimately help those in their ridings who are living with disabilities access the disability benefits they are entitled to.

Filing income tax is, in a way, a one-stop application for a variety of government benefits. People provide the required information and, using a checkbox and their signature, they give various government programs an ability to assess which benefits they are eligible for. Their privacy is protected and it helps public servants with assessing their eligibility. This is exactly what Bill C-348 would do. It would cut through the government red tape and make the process more efficient. Having one application that includes the information needed to assess eligibility and a consent mechanism that allows various government programs to process the appropriate benefits I think makes a lot of sense.

In my constituency office we are doing that almost every day. In Saskatchewan, when persons are receiving the Canada pension plan disability benefits, they are also eligible for the equivalent provincial government program. Every now and then we need to remind our provincial counterparts of this policy, but generally it works well. It is often simply a matter of one government or one department speaking directly to another department to improve service for Canadians. This bill is not an either-or proposition. I believe the government can pursue the work to implement important accessibility legislation and support my colleague's bill. Both would have a positive impact and improve the lives of Canadians living with a disability.

By streamlining the process by having only one application, various government departments would be able to speak to other government departments and assess eligibility for benefits. This is both efficient and effective, which should be one of the big outcomes we strive for when administering government programs and benefits. I believe when it comes right down to it, all of us can agree that individuals living with disabilities should not have to prove or demonstrate their disability to the government more than once. Not only is that more compassionate and respectful, it just makes sense.

I want the people in my community to see their government, their Parliament, as helpful and fulfilling the mandate of making life better for all Canadians. Bill C-348 as tabled by the member for Windsor—Tecumseh would do just that.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise and participate in the debate on behalf of the citizens we are elected to represent. This is an important bill and one I am very supportive of.

Sometimes I am asked by the folks back home what the point is in debating a bill that I support, which I believe is a fair question. From my perspective, I think it is always important for a member of Parliament to outline the reason he or she supports a bill. This debate can also provide an opportunity to pass on concerns or further suggestions for possible amendments down the road.

First, I will outline why I support the bill.

In 2016, I opened a shared constituency office with a B.C. provincial member of the legislative assembly in the community of Summerland, British Columbia. Some have suggested that this may be the only actively operated shared constituency office of its kind in the country. I am not certain if those claims have any validity or not; however, I do know that providing a one-stop shop, so to speak, in providing services to local citizens from both a provincial and federal standpoint has been extremely helpful for many in this community, much as this bill proposes. When we can harmonize, streamline, and by extension simply offer services to Canadians, there are benefits to those who need our help. I laud the principles that are found in the bill.

However, my shared constituency office has also shown me a further need for this bill. As we know, most provinces offer a disability program that is independent and separate from federal programs. Again, the purpose of this bill will help change that.

Given that I share this office with a provincial MLA, I also visit with and meet with some of the citizens who are struggling to obtain status for a provincial disability program. In many cases, were it not for the fact of the shared office, I might not have otherwise met with these citizens. To be candid, the struggles these citizens have in attempting to qualify for a disability program are very real. For many of these citizens, no doctor will see them. In fact, I would wager that if we contacted 20 different physicians for the sole purpose of assessing a disability status application in the area, all would say, “Sorry, we're not taking any new patients.” Of course, there are reasons for that. One is that many doctors indicated that they do not have time to fill out the onerous paperwork that is required. Again, this is something that this bill in the long term could help to improve.

While I support the bill, I do have some concerns. Recently, I encountered some very troubling actions by the Canada Revenue Agency to deny parents their Canadian child benefit support payments. This is almost always targeted at single mothers. One might wonder what this has to do with the debate, but as members may know, the Canada Revenue Agency has repeatedly promised to streamline and improve the process to obtain these benefits, and from a purely administrative standpoint, there have been some improvements. However, when the Canada Revenue Agency bureaucrats can deny one's benefits solely for reasons as trivial as an ex-spouse refusing to change their forwarding address from one's residence, there is a serious problem. This is made worse when CRA basically can say, “We think you are guilty. Prove us wrong.” When it does that, it sets the bar almost impossibly high to do so.

Members can see my point here. As much as any program can be made administratively more simple, which certainly is a good thing, if government bureaucrats still have discretionary power to arbitrarily make poor decisions that adversely impact citizens, then ultimately, we are no further ahead. Unfortunately, the only way that these things are sometimes resolved is through ministerial accountability, and we know that the current Prime Minister is not a fan of ministerial accountability. That works against the brand.

To summarize, this bill is needed and is very much a step in the right direction. I give credit to the member who sponsored it. I would also like to take a moment to say that it is always a helpful thing, as my residents have always said, to see their member stand up on issues that are important to them. It makes them feel part of this great democracy and rule of law that we have here in Canada, and so, kudos to the member.

When I reviewed the member's comments at second reading, I was struck by a particular statement, which I will quote directly from Hansard. The member stated, “I am well aware that private member's bills rarely make it into law, which is why I am determined to propose something modest and achievable.” I would agree and again recognize the member for resisting the temptation to further complicate this bill.

In my view, to be successful, the bill would require considerable flexibility given that it would require different levels of government to work together from different provinces toward a common goal. I believe the member has taken an approach that will create a path to improvement and in an area where improvement is certainly needed and wanted by constituents.

I would like to thank members of Parliament in this place for taking the time to hear my comments. I believe anything that we can do to help those with disabilities navigate the complexities of government to help reap the benefits they need is an important goal that we all share. Canadians send us here to examine the best ideas and it is nice when we can, once in a while, find something to rally around on behalf of our constituents.

[Sheila Malcolmson, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in support of a bill that would provide better government services to people that need our help.

I am going to start off with a quote from my friend and constituent, A.J. Logan, who has this quote from Robert Hensel at the bottom of every email, “We, the one's who are challenged, need to be heard. To be seen not as a disability, but as a person who has and will continue to bloom. To be seen not only as a handicap, but as a well intact human being.”

That is how it should be but instead I am going to describe to members some of the experiences of people in my riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith who are deeply frustrated by their inability to access government services and to be served in the way that they should be served.

I heard from a young veteran with PTSD about dealing with Veterans Affairs. He said, “It's like being given a jigsaw puzzle and turning off the lights.” How inhumane, especially for a young man who has served our country.

My constituency office is one of many across the country being flooded with urgent requests for help from desperate constituents who cannot access basic government services. It is not because they do not qualify but because they simply cannot get through to government agencies or cannot access the necessary information or the forms that they require. Many feel as if they are being systematically stonewalled by the very agencies that supposedly exist to assist them.

My staff member Hilary Eastmure said to me, “CRA recently told me that instead of replying to my faxes within 5 days, I shouldn't expect to hear back from an agent for at least 15 days”. The wait time for even our constituency office to get a reply has tripled. That is due to the “service renewal” at CRA, which has caused major backlogs for its staff as the entire system has been changed and staff have been reduced because some offices were closed or consolidated.

It sounds like things are getting worse, not better, and that was not the expectation that Canadians had of the Liberal government.

Phone lines are jammed to the point where people are not even permitted to remain on hold or leave a message. Instead, my constituents are advised to call back later, which yields the same result no matter what time of day they try to phone. Insiders readily admit that some government agency phone lines are designed to send people in circles and eventually drop their call because the system is too overloaded to handle the number of calls pouring in at any given moment.

The agencies themselves are understaffed and under-resourced. Remaining staff are working hard and they are trying hard, but they are stretched too thin and they are scrambling to cover the ever-growing backlog. Wait times are stretching from days to weeks to months to years. I have lost track of the number of refugee parents who have sat in my office. Being asked to wait years for family reunification means some parents are missing watching their children grow up. It is inhumane.

Whether it is a simple callback or a much needed refund or an anxiously awaited application approval, Canadians are waiting longer and they are suffering undue stress and financial hardship as a result.

Canadians accustomed to reliable service are quickly becoming disillusioned with our system, which is getting increasingly difficult to navigate, and this is especially apparent in the shift to online platforms. People that do not have regular access to a computer or printer, or who are not computer literate, have waited on the phone for hours. For seniors especially to be told to go online and fill out a form just sends them over the brink. They are so frustrated. These are people with disabilities, seniors, low-income Canadians, exactly the people that often require the most support from our government agencies.

Here is a quote from an email received from Freeman Dryden in Nanaimo, “We have been stymied by either lack of confirmations or the reception of refusal letters requesting all sorts of duplicate or impossible-to-find information. We have been made to fill out innumerable forms, both on paper and online, and, to date, have had absolutely no contact with real people, nor any confirmation of the services we carefully applied for.... Surely, there is some way to cut through this nightmare bureaucratic jungle.”

We must do better. We must restore Canadians' faith in the systems set up to support them in their time of need. We must invest in those front-line government agencies and the workers to improve accessibility, service delivery, and accountability.

Federal legislation addresses the issue of disability across a number of different policy areas. For example, legislation that touches on disability has been enacted at the federal level in relation to employment, employment equity, skills training, education, income assistance, tax, health, transportation, housing, as well as recreation and culture—many different ways. The Canada pension plan disability, the disability tax credit, registered disability savings program, veterans disability pensions, and the opportunities fund all operate as stand-alone programs with distinct and separate application processes. This reality makes it cumbersome for people living with disabilities to access the federal supports that they may be entitled to, and they have paid for them already in many cases.

I heard in detail about this from another man in our riding, Terry Wiens. He has had polio and he is facing extraordinary costs associated with his disability. He writes:

I recently had to buy a new RoHo Hybrid cushion for my wheelchair ($820) as well as a hospital bed ($1800 mattress not included) so decided to make a one-time withdrawal of $10,000 from my RIF.

What I didn't realize was the ripple effects of that decision. That raised my annual income enough to eliminate me from the Guaranteed Income Security (all $18/month worth). I have no doubt that next year I will qualify again but in the meantime we are penalized for our independence. You can't really compare the income of an individual that is facing costs that the average person never sees. To add insult to injury losing that GIS also cost me my Premium Medical Services subsidy (another $420/year cost), my opportunity for a subsidized assisted living apartment (GIS qualification is required for the subsidized program), a cut back to my current rental subsidy and doubling (from $450 to $900 yearly) of my Pharmacare deductible. It is not the $18/month payment but the status of qualifying for GIS that is important.

I thank Terry Wiens of Nanaimo. It is a really long letter and it is powerfully written, and it is maddening.

In that context, my New Democrat colleague from Windsor—Tecumseh has proposed Bill C-348. It is so simple, straightforward, and so humane to say we are not going to make everyone applying for these programs prove again and again that they actually face a disability. We are going to have navigators that help these people understand and work through the programs, the same way that veterans are asking for the same kind of navigation services, the same way that veterans affairs in Australia has put in place ages ago.

For people to be supported by a strong social safety net, to be supported by a good government, and to be able to access the programs they have paid into, Bill C-348 is specifically designed to crack the nut on this problem. We believe that people living with disability should not have to demonstrate or prove their disability to the government more than once. Anything more is unnecessarily punitive and disrespectful. It will cost the government nothing to fix this problem, so let us please vote together for Bill C-348, for humanity, for justice, and for the respect that people living with disabilities in our communities deserve.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Resuming debate. Accordingly, I invite the hon. member for Windsor—Tecumseh for her closing five-minute right of reply.

[Cheryl Hardcastle, NDP, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I had to write down my reply because I knew if I was reactionary, I would choke up and would not use my time wisely.

It is very intriguing to hear so many people having the same insights. Members can imagine how gutted I was to hear the government's response in our first hour of debate, officially letting me know that my private member's bill would not be supported. Sadly, Canadians have another opportunity to be cynical of the government with that letdown.

The intent of the bill is to allow a person living with a disability access to all four federal programs with one application, one process, one doctor's note. However, we want to see this rolled out. It takes a bureaucratic role as well, which I mentioned in my introductory speech. Of course this is practical.

The government's replies during debate have frankly been disturbing. We heard the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities congratulate me on being so determined to ensure that all Canadians, no matter their circumstances, have easy access to government programs and services. However, he summed it up that it would not be supported because it was not a practical solution.

I am well aware of the feedback given at consultations nationwide, in town halls and constituency offices, and at round tables and forums. That is why I am here. Simplifying access to federal programs for persons living with disabilities is why Bill C-348 was created. It is a shame that these constituents have not been heard in their ridings of the governing party.

At one point the parliamentary secretary went on to say that streamlining the application process for these programs under a single department or portal would not make it more accessible, faster, or fairer, but that it would create separation between the clients and the governing agencies providing the programs and related support measures for which the clients were applying. In other words, this would put some distance between the clients and the agencies' expertise.

Once again, it is a shame that people have not been listening. Apparently, the parliamentary secretary would have us believe that departmental staff lack the means by which to communicate with one another or that they lack the skills to create the proper structures through which interdepartmental communication can occur.

I have toured these offices and have observed that they are all equipped with computers and telephones and indeed do communicate with the Internet and email. They even have two shared languages with which to communicate officially.

The government's excuses for not supporting the bill are not plausible. If we claim to support the bill in principle but not the bill itself, as has been expressed by the governing party, I challenge all of us to then take up this principle and make it happen with the anticipated accessibility rights legislation that was announced for next year. Really, right now, with Bill C-348, we have a chance to tell the bureaucracy to work out a plan to achieve this goal, and we will support it in the process to that end.

People who have to book Handi-Transit two weeks in advance do find it onerous to apply separately for each program at the federal level. That is the reality. It is hard to imagine representatives would not have any knowledge of this problem and would vote against this bill. I can only give Canadians a heads up to watch how this vote plays out.

I sincerely hope this master application process that I have introduced is only being turned down because it will be included in some sweeping legislation introduced with the new accessibility bill. Canadians have to remain strong and vigilant on removing the barriers persons living with disabilities face. I am privileged to, again and again, bring forward the practical solutions that maximize the resources we have today.

Canada is capable of doing better with what we have now, if we are willing.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And five or more members having risen:

Pursuant to Standing Order 93, the recorded division stands deferred until Wednesday, January 31, 2018, that is tomorrow, immediately before the time provided for private members' business.

The House resumed from January 30 consideration of the motion that Bill C-348, An Act to amend the Department of Employment and Social Development Act (persons with disabilities), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[The Speaker, Geoff Regan]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-348 under private members' business.

(The House divided on the motion, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #438