You make a very good point in terms of the criteria for qualifying for either Canada Pension Plan disability benefits, the disability tax credit, or other programs. I'm happy to say that because of the work of organizations such as mine and many others, there has been an understanding of expanding the definition of what it means to be disabled for the disability tax credit.
One of the obstacles people face is that when they reach a level of disability, they have to go through two assessments for the disability tax credit and the Canada Pension disability benefit. In our view, those should be harmonized. That would be a very sensible way to approach allowing people to claim disability benefits, if they qualify, and the disability tax credit.
We're talking a lot about employment insurance around this table today. People who have an episodic disability, who have periods of illness at times but then they get better, are the people who really have a problem trying to stay in the workforce. But they support themselves in the periods when they are ill and when they're disabled. So going forward, this is the kind of thing where we're looking for much more flexibility in terms of existing programs and to actually look at how the programs can work together.
I think there's an opportunity perhaps to do a bit of work in this upcoming budget in looking at some specific areas. We would also like to see the federal government take a leadership role in looking at all the disability programs and sit down and say okay, what needs to be done--not just to make a few small changes but actually look at all the programs that people with disabilities need.