Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
Mr. Chair, I just want to make something clear. My frustration with some of the conversation around the disability tax credit should not be misunderstood. The chair, Mr. Fergus, and many of my colleagues have stated concerns that something has changed in terms of the administration or the communication, or that there is something going on. Even the commissioner acknowledged that they have to get to the bottom of where these concerns are coming from.
My frustration comes from the fact that prior to being a federal member, I spent a large part of my career fighting for persons with disabilities, and it really bothers me when I see the opposition fighting and using people with disabilities as a political pawn when they knew that making cuts to the CRA, cutting the disability advisory committee, cutting training.... What did they think would happen, Mr. Chair? Did they think service levels would be improved by making substantial cuts to the CRA and cutting nurses who could help the CRA administer some of these things? My frustration is from the fact that substantial cuts happened over the past decade, and now we're living with the ramifications.
Cuts were made so that technology couldn't be increased, and now we have to go through files manually to figure out where the problems are coming from. In this day and age, in this government, the CRA has to manually pull files to figure out the data. Perhaps, had the Conservatives made some investments and kept up with the times, we could have managed this in a way that made sure that the most vulnerable persons with disabilities, who fundamentally need this money and these resources, wouldn't have to be waiting for cases to be manually pulled so we could get to the appropriate solution.
With that preamble, Mr. Chair, I'll get to my questions in terms of technologies.
This is what we tend to be hearing about where there might be some level of difference. I say “difference” because we don't even have an answer for what's going on, although we know there was no policy change.
There seems to be some difference coming from this idea that technology has made the administration of type 1 diabetes in particular easier to manage, or that the therapy does not require those 14 hours. I guess my critical question is this: who in the CRA, or what level of the agency, determines at what point the technology correlates to a reduction in hours needed? You haven't had the disability advisory committee from 2006 until today. You didn't have them to consult with. The Conservatives also fired nurses who would advise at the CRA, so at what level did the discussion around technology...? Who made that decision? Who would make a decision like that, if that's ultimately the rationale?
It's not just with diabetes; it could be for anything in administering the disability tax credit.